Analyze the following scenario and identify the structural flaw in the user's prompt that prevents the desired outcome. Explain your reasoning.

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The structure of a zero-shot Chain-of-Thought prompt for an arithmetic task involves two key components. First, the user's question is stated directly. Second, an instruction is appended to trigger the model's reasoning process. For example, the question 'Q: Please calculate the average of the numbers 2, 4, and 9' would be followed by the instruction 'A: Let’s think step-by-step' to guide the model.

Structure of a Zero-Shot CoT Prompt for an Arithmetic Task

A user wants a large language model to solve a simple arithmetic word problem by explaining its reasoning process. The user does not want to provide any pre-solved examples in the prompt. Which of the following prompts is best structured to achieve this?

You want a language model to solve the following word problem and explain its reasoning: 'A bakery has 25 cupcakes. They sell 10 and then bake 15 more. How many cupcakes do they have now?' Without providing any solved examples in your request, write a complete prompt that is structured to elicit a step-by-step thought process from the model.

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