Almost every situation for which I have needed mathematics outside the classroom has been a &quot;word problem&quot;. Nobody has ever simply come to me and asked me to multiply two numbers together and then add the result to something else.<p>Instead, I get word problems like &quot;how long is this task going to take, if we can give you this much resource?&quot; and &quot;how long is it going to take to drive from A to B at this time, given this knowledge of traffic conditions?&quot; and &quot;what&#x27;s the best tradeoff of time spent travelling against airfare, to travel from here to there, given these limiting conditions?&quot; and so on and so on.<p>Word problems don&#x27;t exist? Nonsense.