I agree with your general point, but if you want to give math problems that inspire creative, rigorous thought, you need to make them very clear, with as little ambiguity and assumed knowledge as possible. These problems don't do that. Examples:
Kopecks being indivisible, there being only one book at a specific price in the first problem, books being on a shelf in a specific order (13).
>>A brick weighs one pound and half the brick. How many pounds does the brick weigh?
As a native speaker, that doesn't even make sense, and I don't know a natural way to express it that doesn't do most of the work of the problem. (Another comment indicates it means "a brick's weight is equal to half of a brick plus one pound".)
Kopecks being indivisible, there being only one book at a specific price in the first problem, books being on a shelf in a specific order (13).
>>A brick weighs one pound and half the brick. How many pounds does the brick weigh?
As a native speaker, that doesn't even make sense, and I don't know a natural way to express it that doesn't do most of the work of the problem. (Another comment indicates it means "a brick's weight is equal to half of a brick plus one pound".)