Students & Word Problems

A few reasons.
1) Crowd mentality - People are so used to hearing or being told of how hard and bad word problems are, so when they come across them, they automatically get stuck on simple concepts.
2) Overthinking - People find it super hard to take things exactly as they're worded and try to come up with different reasons of "why" or "how" when the answer is simply a calculation.
3) Lack of reading comprehension - Totally agree with you on this one. Tons of people lack the necessary skills to filter out relevant/irrelevant information in problems and totally misunderstand a problem, even if they have the calculations right.
4) Misapplication - applying the wrong concepts to the problem.
5) Laziness - "Too much reading, too much interpretation, I just don't want to."
6)Overwhelming - A cluster of words can be super overwhelming and bog brains down if you can't pick through.

I could probably add more if I wanted to think.

Nicely stated.

I disagree with all of the reasons given so far.

Transforming word problems into a mathematical expressions is a skill that is difficult for many people. It involves both the ability to parse language and to think symbolically.

The reason people have teouble doing it is because it is a difficult skill to master.

I agree. It is not easy. Some people dedicate months even years trying to master the skill to convert equations from stated information in word problems but to no avail. This is especially true in terms of probability applications. Probability word problems are quite fuzzy and often not clearly worded. Like you said, some people just never get it.

Some people dedicate months even years trying to master the skill to convert equations from stated information in word problems but to no avail. This is especially true in terms of probability applications. Probability word problems are quite fuzzy and often not clearly worded. Some people just never get it.

Here is one:

Two numbers add up to 72. One number is twice the other. Find the numbers.

That's fairly straightforward, but how about this one..

4 people are in a room. 6 people.leave. gow many people need to reenter.the room for it to be empty?

Your sample application is hard to read with so many typos.

What typos?

Here it is:

4 people are in a room. 6 people.leave. gow many people need to reenter.the room for it to be empty?

WHAT IS GOW?

NEVER BEGIN A SENTENCE WITH A NUMBER.

WHY TWO PERIODS HERE

". 6 people.leave."?

YOU FORGOT THE HYPHEN IN THE WORD RE-ENTER. SEE IT?

Sigh!

You are focusing on pedantry and missing the interesting mathematical idea. Maybe that is the answer to the question you are raising. I will make all of the changes you suggest and try again.



Is that better for you?

If four people are in a room, then six cannot leave. At most, four can leave. Now my turn. Yes?

Integrate (1/(sqrt{x^2}) from 1 to 4. Show your work....

Please, solve before the rapture of the church.

You are missing the point. This problem has a perfectly good mathematical answer.

4 - 6 + 2 = 0

The constraint you are adding is based on your beliefs about how people work. It isn't inherent in the problem.

Let me guess: COMMON CORE MATH???

I am pretty sure I know more math then you do. But who cares? I am just here to have fun.

I am not here to fight, having fun with math is actually valuable.

Is this a triangle which I see before me, the base toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

Forsooth, the secret is out, the nights at the museum are spent integrating by substitution with trigonometric functions.

You are a Pelosi follower, right?