Lesson 4 of 8
Ask it more than once
6 min read
You ask a tricky question, get a confident answer, and move on. But ask the same question five times and you might get three different answers. That's not a bug — it's a tool. The one that shows up most is usually the right one.
Five tries, one vote
A single answer to a hard problem can be a lucky hit or an unlucky slip — and you can't tell which. [Self-consistency](glossary://self-consistency) takes the pressure off any one try: ask the model to solve it a few times, each reasoning its own way, then take the answer that comes up most often. The wrong tries scatter in different directions; the right one keeps recurring, so the majority vote lands on it.
Self-consistency means solving the same problem several times and taking the majority answer. Because slips scatter and the right answer recurs, the vote beats any single try.
When the vote helps — and when it doesn't
This works best stacked on step-by-step reasoning, on questions that have one right answer — a calculation, a logic puzzle. It costs more (you're paying for several answers, not one), so save it for when being right really matters. And it can't settle a question that has no single answer: ask "what should I name my café" five times and you just get five opinions, not a winner.
Reach for the vote on hard problems with one correct answer, when it's worth the extra effort. On open or creative questions there's nothing to converge on, so the majority means nothing.
You're paying for several answers instead of one, and the gains fade after a handful of tries — so this is a tool for the high-stakes calculation, not the everyday quick question.
The gist
- —Ask a hard question several times and take the answer that recurs most
- —Slips scatter, the right answer repeats — so the majority beats a single try
- —Only for questions with one right answer, and only when it's worth the extra cost
For which question would asking five times and taking the majority actually help?
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