Chain of Thought (CoT)

What Is Chain of Thought (CoT)?

Chain of Thought prompting asks the LLM to "think through" a problem rather than jumping to an answer. For example, instead of asking "What is 17 x 24?", you ask "What is 17 x 24? Think step by step." The model then shows its work: "17 x 20 = 340, 17 x 4 = 68, 340 + 68 = 408."

CoT improves accuracy on: math and logic problems, multi-step reasoning, code debugging, complex analysis, and decision-making tasks. Studies show 20-40% accuracy improvement on reasoning tasks.

Variations: zero-shot CoT ("think step by step"), few-shot CoT (provide examples with reasoning), and Tree of Thought (explore multiple reasoning paths).