Write the following sets of numbers represented textually in interval notation --- Note that this can be parsed in two different ways: "Write the following sets of numbers (represented textually in interval notation)" and "Write the following sets of numbers represented textually (in interval notation)". The first asks for sets of numbers to be written, where the sets of numbers are given in a textually represented form that is written in interval notation. The second asks for sets of numbers to be written in interval notation, where the sets of numbers are given in a textually represented form. Of course, context prevents one from parsing this in the first way, but students who are very uncertain about what this is all about could easily parse this in the first way and be confused as to what it is you want.
For each of the following textual descriptions of a set of numbers, write the set of numbers in interval notation.
(a) All real numbers between 5 and 7, including 5 and not including 7.
(b) All real numbers between 1 and 10, including 1 and including 10.
Note that I've written (a) and (b) in a similar fashion (this is called parallel writing), and there are 4 formats that the words after the comma can take: (1) including $m$ and including $n$; (2) including $m$ and not including $n$; (3) not including $m$ and including $n$; (4) not including $m$ and not including $n$. For an individual class, being this meticulous is not particularly important, but if these questions are to appear on a widely taken standardized test in which the results are to be analyzed statistically, the use of parallel writing tends to decrease irrelevant variance caused by differing reading skills and other factors that one would want to disentangle from the math skills being measured.