>>Does it have the rudimentary capability of understanding the spoken question or is the question inputted separately?<<
From what I understand, it understands the category as well as the question.
It is a quibble whether it reads the question or hears it from Trebek.
Not a quibble at all. Even a small child could easily understand the spoken question. If the computer cannot, it is obviously limited in its abilities even when compared to a child.
“It is a quibble whether it reads the question or hears it from Trebek.”
Understanding spoken speech requires far more processing. There can be difficulties in a machine understanding regional dialects, slang, and subtle differences in similar sounding words. For example, disambiguating heir, air, and err requires additional processing to determine which word best fits the context of the sentence.