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Your uncle walks in, jingling the coins in his pocket. He grins at you and tells you that you can have the coins if you can figure out how many of each kind of coin he is carrying. You're not too interested until he tells you that he's been collecting those gold-tone dollar coins. The twenty-six coins in his pocket are dollars and quarters, and they add up to seventeen dollars. How many of each coin does he have?
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Easy, right? I mean, a quarter is clearly 1/4 of something. But what if the coins are pennies, dimes? Or shillings or quids or loonies or toonies? Sure, no cultural knowledge there? If you know how many toonies it talkes to pay a $7.60 fare and what change you'll get, you do so because you wtf a toonie is.
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What is the area of a baseball diamond where the outfield fence is 300 feet from home plate?
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Any cultural knowledge required here? I think so.
Math problems are hard enough, making good problems is harder, and expressing good math problems well in English (don't get me started on ESL) is harder still. It's not a slam dunk.