I think this whole thing is missing the point. People, even young people, are extremely savvy when it comes to figuring out what they need to do to get what the

I think this whole thing is missing the point. People, even young people, are extremely savvy when it comes to figuring out what they need to do to get what they want. What they want is to do well in school. How they do well is to pass their tests. How they pass their tests is by learning the answers to the questions. Making indirect questions that "appeal to real-life problems" is obviously worse, because the main real-life problem students have is passing their tests. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for this to not be the case. If students could be assessed on their ability to actually understand and use the material to generate new insights and solve interesting problems, I think mathematics education would be a lot better. But as long as we're assessing students on equation-memorising, let's not pretend otherwise in the way we teach them.