Step-by-step prompting fails to improve modern AI reasoning models

1. Stop using phrases like 'think step by step' or 'think harder' when prompting modern AI reasoning models.
2. Ask the model to work out the problem carefully and provide a short explanation of its key steps.
3. Instruct the AI to explicitly state the assumptions it made during its reasoning process.
4. Request specific calculations or verification steps that you can use to manually check the output.