This paper reports research into the linguistic and extra-linguistic or social-cognitive structure of problem presentation contexts. The effects of textual and social syntax were investigated, including the specific structure of the problem text by which situations, processes, actions, and number relations are implicitly or explicitly expressed, questioned, and commented upon. Also investigated was the nature of the pragmatic and social psychological context (case studies). The paper outlines and discusses an interrelated set of studies showing that: (1) subject matter related to, or factual attitudes toward a problem frequently don't play an important part in problem solving; (2) students often solve problems correctly without understanding them; (3) directionality and goals of problem solving processes strongly interact with textual and contextual cues; and (4) false contextual expectations can lead to abstruse errors of understanding and strange solution paths. The results are discussed as an analysis of social-cognitive behavior, in which the classroom is described as a format, a social-cognitive matrix, and a metacognitive matrix. Issues raised include questions about students' epistemic control behavior, and the personality of the problem solver. References, figures, and tables are appended. (Author/JM)