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IntermediateCore Techniques
Chain-of-Thought Prompting: Complete Guide for Prompt Engineers
Ask the model to reason step-by-step before giving a final answer. Dramatically improves accuracy on complex reasoning tasks. Learn when to use it, see a real example, and understand the best practices.
When to Use This Technique
Math problems, logic puzzles, multi-step analysis, or any task requiring reasoning that can be broken into steps.
Example Prompt
Q: If a train travels 60mph for 2.5 hours, then 80mph for 1.5 hours, what is the total distance?
A: Let me work through this step by step. First leg: 60 × 2.5 = 150 miles. Second leg: 80 × 1.5 = 120 miles. Total: 270 miles.
Pro Tips
- ✓Add 'Let's think step by step' to activate reasoning
- ✓CoT works best in larger models (7B+ parameters)
- ✓Use zero-shot CoT for simple cases, few-shot CoT for complex ones
- ✓Can be combined with self-consistency for better accuracy
More Practice Prompts
Q: If a train travels 60mph for 2.5 hours, then 80mph for 1.5 hours, what is the total distance?
A: Let me work through this step by step. First leg: 60 × 2.5 = 150 miles. Second leg: 80 × 1.5 = 120 miles. Total: 270 miles.
FAQ
When should I use Chain-of-Thought Prompting?
Math problems, logic puzzles, multi-step analysis, or any task requiring reasoning that can be broken into steps.
What difficulty level is Chain-of-Thought Prompting?
Chain-of-Thought Prompting is considered Intermediate level in the Core Techniques category.
Quick Facts
DifficultyIntermediate
CategoryCore Techniques