This is the wordy types of questions where you have to combine several areas of maths to solve a problem.
Success in these questions is largely down to not giving up and doing what ever calculations you can with the information you have been given.
For example if a question has a circle in it, you will probably be expected to calculate an area or circumference at some point in the question.
On meter reading questions (Gas/Water/Electricity) the old reading is what you have already paid for so all you have to work out is the difference and the cost of that.