Why do students struggle with word problems?

[Office_Shredder]

So, I'm the problem and not illiterate writers that cannot put together a structured set of sentences. Have you ever read a probability word problem? Talk about fuzzy language.

I've read many word problems, and most of them are fine. You know the real world is nothing but poorly defined word problems right? I agree with the rest of the posters here - even if you've seen some badly written word problems, your attitude about them is almost certainly the primary thing holding you back.

 

[Mark44]

So, I'm the problem and not illiterate writers that cannot put together a structured set of sentences. Have you ever read a probability word problem? Talk about fuzzy language.

As already mentioned several time, word problems are not generally written by illiterate writers. You seem to be making broad, sweeping generalizations based on very little actual data. In statistics, extrapolating outside of the known data can lead to incorrect conclusions.

So, there's this game show hosted by someone called Monty Hall ...

@nycmathguy, there is a well-known probability problem based on the show that Monty Hall hosted, and this was what @PeroK was referring to. The problem is well-known enough to have its own Wikipedia entry -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem. Apparently your knowledge of probability problems doesn't extend to this one.

This thread has run its course and is now closed.