Question

A financial analyst is building a prompt that asks Claude to evaluate whether a loan application should be approved based on several criteria. The analyst wants Claude to reason through each criterion before committing to a final decision, so they add 'Think step by step' to the prompt. However, in testing, Claude often states its approval decision in the first sentence and then writes reasoning that merely justifies that snap decision. What is the most effective adjustment to genuinely improve the quality of Claude's reasoning?

Accepted Answer

Explicitly instruct Claude to write out its analysis inside tags first, and to place its final decision only afterward inside tags.

Answer

Increase the temperature setting so Claude explores more reasoning paths before deciding.

Answer

Add the phrase 'Think step by step' a second time at the end of the prompt for emphasis.

Answer

Prefill the assistant response with the word 'Approved:' to guide the output format.