To illustrate:

“The answer is not immediately obvious. Indeed, word problems in these forms are not only long-winded but also prone to misinterpretation. I may have wanted to ask you something but you may have understood (and answered) something else entirely. Moreover, I may have misspecified what I originally wanted to ask. All in all, this seems like a rather unfortunate way of asking questions of such nature. What if I change it to something like this instead:”

Could shrink to:

“The answer is not obvious. Wordy descriptions of math problems are prone to miscommunication—and tediousness. Compare:”