Math Word Problems Practice: Why Pictures and Text Both Matter
A word problem is not "maths with extra sentences." It is an item whose meaning lives in the stem, and often in a figure the stem is talking about. On My Path, a large share of Kangaroo items and of General Math items work that way. Some are diagram-first: the picture is the problem, and the text is a short question about it. Practising from a paraphrase, or from a topic guess made without the picture, is how you serve the wrong question.
This page is about sitting the actual item — stem, figure, KaTeX — and about Mixed Problems, the topic we use when a puzzle will not sit on a single keyword.
Stem and figure are one item
In a session, maths renders as maths. KaTeX sets the notation in the stem so a fraction is a fraction. If the item includes a diagram, the diagram is part of the question, not optional decoration. Skip the figure and you are answering a different task than the one in the bank. Flag the item if you need more time; do not invent a text-only version in your head and call it practice.
That sounds obvious until you watch someone classify items for a drill. They read one sentence, decide "this is geometry," and build a sitting. A Kangaroo stem that says a beetle walks along a path can be counting, geometry, or a graph in disguise. The figure decides. Without it, the keyword is a guess. Guessing a topic without the picture is how you serve the wrong question — to the student, and to the mastery bar.
My Path does not offer a "word problems" tick separate from the closed topic list. Word problems live inside algebra, geometry, statistics, number, fractions, and Mixed Problems. The ones that resist a keyword, especially contest puzzles, land in Mixed Problems. Math practice by topic is the vocabulary. This article is why the picture travels with the text.
Why Kangaroo is full of these
Math Kangaroo papers are built to be done without a heavy toolkit: thinking, not a page of formulae. That produces word problems and figure problems in the same booklet. The first third of a paper is 3-point tasks, the middle 4, the last 5. A 3-point item can still be a short story plus a picture. A 5-point item is often a diagram you have to stare at.
Math Kangaroo practice pins the family. General Math does not, so the same items can appear when grade and topic match. Either way, you practise with the actual item. We are not affiliated with official Math Kangaroo / Kangourou sans Frontières.
Paper sizes depend on grade level: 24 tasks at 3–4, 24 or 30 at 5–6 by year, 30 from 7–8 upward. General Math sittings are 10, 20, or 60 and are not trying to be those papers. They will still hand you word problems and diagrams from that pool.
No wrong-answer penalty on our Kangaroo-shaped scoring — editions disagree by country and year, so we do not guess. That does not make guessing the figure optional. The figure is still the question.
Mixed Problems is where many word problems live
The closed topic list is algebra, geometry, statistics, number, fractions, and Mixed Problems. We do not show Unclassified. Unclassified is an editor's confession. Mixed Problems is a learner-facing topic: this item is maths, it is in your band, and it does not collapse to one strand.
Many Mixed Problems are word problems. Many are picture problems. Plenty are both. A puzzle that needs the diagram to know whether you are counting squares, chasing an angle, or using a hidden ratio would be a lie if we forced "geometry" from the first noun in the stem.
If you only drill algebra and geometry, you can look strong on the hub and still freeze on Mixed Problems. That freeze is not a mystery personality trait. It is the skill of reading a stem and a figure without being told the chapter title. Practise it as itself.
Topic master at 80% includes Mixed Problems if you sit it. Ignoring the topic because it feels messy trains you for a textbook that always announces the strand. Kangaroo will not announce it. A lot of General Math will not either.
Guessing the topic without the picture
Imagine a one-line stem: "How many different routes can the ant take?" Without the figure you might tag it number, or combinatorics you wish we had as a tick, or geometry if you assume a grid. The figure might be a graph, a cube, or a park map. Each is a different item. Each would move a different mastery bar if we let the guess stand.
The bank tags items with the picture in view. Your sitting should keep the picture in view. There is no supported mode that strips figures and still claims to be the same question. If an image fails to load, that sitting is broken for that item; skip and flag, do not guess the diagram.
Parents building a "word problem worksheet" off-platform by copying stems out of a session are building a different worksheet. The student who aces the copied text and fails the real item is not failing maths. They are failing a missing figure.
How to practise word problems on the hub
Open /education. Use General Math for the whole subject, or Kangaroo if you want the contest family. Pick one grade band. Word problems at 5–6 and at 11–12 share a genre and not a difficulty. Several grade ticks still roll one band; they do not mix. Grade bands and why grade bands matter are the same rule as every other maths sitting.
Then pick a topic strategy:
- Strand plus story. Algebra or fractions, 20 questions, medium. Many items will be worded. You are practising the strand as it appears in language, with figures when they exist.
- Mixed Problems. The puzzle pile. Expect diagrams. Expect stems that do not name the method.
- All topics. A General Math default. You will get a mix of short calculations and word/figure items. Fine for fluency. Weak if you are trying to diagnose "I cannot read a diagram."
Size 10, 20, or 60; default 20. Immediate feedback if you are teaching reading of the stem ("underline the quantity, look at the figure, then compute"). Review at end if you want a clean sitting. Skip when you do not know. Flag when the figure made sense but the last step did not.
Afterward: retry wrong first. A wrong word problem is usually a misread, a missed figure constraint, or a strand gap. Retrying tells you which. A new mixed 60 does not.
What the sitting UI gives you for these items
KaTeX in the stem. Images where the item has images. Skip and flag. Timer optional. Navigation free or forward-only. You cannot mark a figure as "seen" and hide it. You should not need to.
Session review lists correct, wrong, skipped. Open the misses with the figure still there. If the review ever looks like text without a picture that the live item had, treat that as a bug in that view, not as a new easier question.
AI gap analysis, when you have tokens and Education, can talk about patterns in misses. It cannot replace looking at the diagram you got wrong.
Language, figures, and retired papers
English spans the five grade bands for maths. The card may offer another language if the bank has items in it. Polish items exist from a retired exam. They are not a live Egzamin Ósmoklasisty product — we do not advertise that exam as available, and we do not put named SAT or GCSE papers on the Exams shelf either. Figure-heavy items in a language you cannot read are not "word problem practice"; they are a language wall. Leave the control on English unless you have a real reason not to.
Crops and scans are a known failure mode for exam papers that were never transcribed. Live practice items are meant to be readable: stem as text where possible, figure as figure, options as options. If an item is only a picture of a whole page, that is not the experience this article is describing. The live General Math and Kangaroo practice cards are the ones to use.
Who can sit, and what it costs
Online math practice for students is Student or Monthly. Student is €9.99/month, 250 tokens, no trial, unlimited Education, plus For Me personality tests. Monthly is €19.99, 2000 tokens, 7-day €1.99 trial, unlimited Education. For Me and Around Me include no Education. GBP mirrors EUR; PLN zł24.99 / 49.99 / 99.99. Get Student — €9.99/month — at /premium. Signup grace does not open Education. Student plan vs Around Me: same price, different product.
Personality tests do not include figures you have to reason about as maths. Do not use a trait score to explain a Mixed Problems bar. Sit the items.
A sensible sequence for word-problem fluency
Week one: one band, fractions or number, 20, immediate feedback, parent or teacher in the room for the reading step. Week two: same band, Mixed Problems, 20, review at end. Week three: Kangaroo card at that level, not because every item is a story, but because enough of them are. Retry wrong every time. Do not raise the band because stories "feel babyish." Raise it when medium 20s at this band are genuinely easy, figures included.
If Mixed Problems stays low while algebra is high, you do not need more algebra worksheets without pictures. You need stems and figures that refuse to name the strand.
Diagram-first items are still word problems
Some items lead with a figure and add a one-line ask: how many, which is larger, what is the area of the shaded part. Those are easy to mis-file as "not word problems" because the word count is low. They are the same skill: you have to read what the figure is allowed to mean, then compute. A student who only practises long narrative stems will still fail these. A student who only practises bare equations will fail both.
Skip is the right move when you cannot yet see what the figure is asking. Random-picking a multiple-choice option trains a different habit than contest day will reward — and even though we do not apply a wrong-answer penalty on Kangaroo-shaped scoring, a guessed diagram is still a miss you should retry with the picture in view.
Flag when the figure made sense and the arithmetic failed, or the other way around. At review you want those two piles separable in your own notes even if the software only gives you one flagged list. "Misread the diagram" and "could not multiply fractions" are different next sittings: Mixed Problems versus fractions, same band.
Timer pressure makes people skip the figure. If that is the failure mode, sit Mixed Problems with the timer off until looking at the picture is automatic. Then add relaxed or exam mode on the Kangaroo card, still at one grade band.
General Math will keep serving these items whenever they match the query, because there is no exam-family pin. That is useful for fluency. It is not a reason to skip the Kangaroo card if the contest is the goal — paper shape and 3/4/5 weighting live there.
Limits
We will not claim that practising word problems gets anyone into a particular school. We will not invent a taxonomy of twenty micro-topics so that "train problems" and "age problems" get their own ticks. We will not strip pictures for accessibility of the drill if that creates a different question — the accessible version of a diagram item is a proper description plus the diagram, not a topic guess.
Education on My Path is the wider Education map. This page is only why text and pictures both matter.
Sit the item you will see on the paper
Open /education. Start General Math or Kangaroo at one grade. Include Mixed Problems if you want the puzzles that will not keyword. Read the stem. Look at the figure. Then compute.
If Education is locked, Get Student — €9.99/month — on /premium. Practice with the actual item. The picture is not extra.