Get a chatbot's wrong math answer right with chain-of-thought prompting

The chatbot solved a word problem confidently and got the number wrong.

IntermediateRead 5 minDoing: about 30 minutes6 steps

What you'll have at the end

A worked answer to your word problem with every reasoning step shown, the base of each calculation named out loud, and the final number checked two independent ways against the numbers you started with.

Before you start

You need

A chatbot you can send prompts to directly, and a multi-step word problem where you already got a confidently wrong final number with no reasoning shown.

Not covered

Running the calculation through an actual code interpreter or calculator tool instead of the chatbot; every check here stays inside plain conversation.

Leans on

6 steps

Where to go next

Audit a failing prompt against a checklist of common mistakes

the wrong answer turns out to have nothing to do with the math, and you need a broader checklist for what else in the prompt could be causing it

Checked 15 Aug 2026

Part of the Prompt Engineering cookbook