Editing Mathematical problem (section)

==Real-world problems==
Informal "real-world" mathematical problems are questions related to a concrete setting, such as "Adam has five apples and gives John three. How many has he left?".  Such questions are usually more difficult to solve than regular [[mathematical exercise]]s like "5&nbsp;&minus;&nbsp;3", even if one knows the mathematics required to solve the problem. Known as [[word problem (mathematics education)|word problem]]s, they are used in [[mathematics education]] to teach students to connect real-world situations to the abstract language of mathematics.

In general, to use mathematics for solving a real-world problem, the first step is to construct a [[mathematical model]] of the problem. This involves abstraction from the details of the problem, and the modeller has to be careful not to lose essential aspects in translating the original problem into a mathematical one. After the problem has been solved in the world of mathematics, the [[solution (mathematics)|solution]] must be translated back into the context of the original problem.