Students often struggle to connect math with the real world. Word problems—a combination of words, numbers, and mathematical operations—can be a perfect vehicle to take abstract numbers off the page.

Artificial intelligence systems may be good at generating text, recognizing images, and even solving basic math problems—but when it comes to advanced mathematical reasoning, they are hitting a wall.

Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify how University of Colorado researchers handle their data collection. A student digs into a math problem that references his favorite superhero, ...