I think it&#x27;s just sloppy and unintentional, especially for a timed test.  I find things like this common in my kids&#x27; Math homework. (I don&#x27;t blame common core, I blame bad text book writers.)<p>I also had to run the interpretation of 209 &quot;salads and an unknown number of drinks&quot; through my head as I parsed it.<p>I do see the value in learning how to remove ambiguity when trying to solve a problem, but I&#x27;m not convinced that is what they are intentionally testing.<p>On the other hand, I really liked how it says you may <i>not</i> use a calculator on the ones that did not need a calculator -- especially when running off to a calculator would have only made things worse!