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Find which budget lines your club overspent

Practice: Setting limits and rules. About 5 minutes.

About this exercise

You're treasurer of the Hiking Club, and the student activities office wants a short note in its web form checking your fall spending against the budget. You want exactly 4 numbered lines, one per category, each giving what was spent, the budget, and whether it went over (and by how much), under 60 words in total, in plain text (the form shows symbols as clutter). No intro, use only the expense log, and nothing about next semester.

Common mistakes when you ask AI for this

  • Saying "summarize our spending". The AI walks through every trip and every comment, and the over-budget answer gets lost in the middle. Try: Ask for the shape: "Exactly 4 numbered lines, one per category: spent, budget, over or not."
  • Not mentioning the duplicate. The AI adds up every row it sees unless you tell it to check for flags like a duplicate entry. Try: Add: "Skip any row marked as a duplicate."
  • Not checking the math. Doing sums in its head, the AI miscounts or mixes the budget into the total. Try: Say: "Show each category's addition in its line, like 285+62=347, then compare it to the budget."
  • Trusting the AI to count words. AI is bad at counting. Ask for a total word limit and it often lands 10-20% over. Try: Cap each part instead: "each line under 14 words."
  • Forgetting where it's pasted. AI adds bold totals and headings that show up as asterisks in a web form. Try: Say: "Plain text for a web form, no bold."

What a strong prompt includes

  • Sets one line per category
  • Handles the duplicate row
  • Asks it to show the math
  • Sets a word limit
  • Asks for plain text

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