Science

This is what word problems are.

Things may have changed since my graduation in 1974, but my experience was that word problems were contrived scenarios with little or no relevance to my life. I was pretty good at math and had very good reading comprehension, so I never actually struggled with any of it.

But not once was I ever asked to calculate the storage requirements for a collection of toys, where on the teeter-totter to sit to balance it, how long a ladder needed to be to safely used to get on top of a given roof, or safe maximum driving speed given standard reaction times under various conditions of low visibility.

Instead, it was all stuff that sounded like a surrealist riddle. (If a chicken-and-a-half can lay an egg-and-a-half in a day-and-a-half, how long will it take for a frog with a wooden leg to kick through a pickle?)

And besides being pretty good at it, I actually enjoyed math once other interests and working with my dad in the shop showed me just how useful it can be.