Teaching and Learning word problems could help students better understand Mathematics concepts and real-life situations. However, not all word problems reflect reality, or not all of them have the practicality. Some word problems might be designed for further exploration, or just for practicing mathematical strategies, or just for fun. From this point of view, word problems have generality and abstraction. Not only symbolic manipulation could be abstract, word problems could also be abstract, especially for those artificial word problem. " Pure " mathematics and "applied" mathematics cannot be completely separated, since even the most abstract mathematics could have applications.
Above statements are true for word problems either of Babylonians or of modern world. Although ancient Babylonians lived in more than 4000 years ago and their representations are limited by language and notations, they have the same wisdom as the people living in modern world. Our familiarity with contemporary algebra could not change the nature of the mathematics.
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