Question about the chapters

[Celt eat TC]

Can anyone explain me the differences between the chapters, or rather, why there are different chapters? I mean, if im getting it correctly they are like different "paths" or "retelling" of the same story, right? It got me pretty much confussed.

So, there are 4 "question" arcs and 4 "answer" arcs, but... is it a lineal story path? Because i played a bit of the second chapter (around 3-4 sub-chapters) and its like nothing happened, so i guess its a retelling to tell something different. Does each answer chapter correspond with a question chapter, or something like that?

I apologize for how confused im sounding.

[Ohagi-Chan]

Is the story linear

Only some parts. The majority of Higurashi is alternative ways Keiichi and his friends approached the Hinamizawa disaster of 1984, one way or another. (in fact "the disaster" isn't even necessarily the same event in every story, in some of the stories it was entirely averted (not that you'd know) only to be replaced by a different one.

Is it 4 question ars to 4 answer arcs?)

Layman's answer is yes, but I despise this answer.
Chapter 4 Himastubushi was originally developed as background concept rather than a story for consumption and it wasn't until Ryukishi started working on writing the Answer arcs that he finally decided that he'd rather include it as it's own arc than try to work the infoormation into the story some other way. Originally Meakashi was supposed to be the fourth arc and there would be seven total.
Because of the information it teaches, I don't feel comfortable calling it a question arc nor an answer arc - I'd actually prefer to call it an answer arc since the mystery to revelation ratio is about the same as the two answer arcs that follow it.

Anyway. Back on topic.

There are not 4 answer arcs to 4 question arcs. There are two answer arcs that address content from the first three question arcs by shedding different light on their mysteries to establish which rules of the story are easier to bend than others, and then the last two answer arcs do a little more than this but ultimately they are cheat sheet arcs that get you up to speed if you were reading for the entertainment instead of going grey-haired, wondering about the supposed mystery that this series is hiding.

[Celt eat TC]

I see... I think i (kind of) half-got it. Thank you very much.