CCAO-F practice questions: Troubleshooting and optimization.

Halfway through a long conversation Claude stops following an instruction you gave at the start. Most likely cause and fix?

• The instruction conflicted with a later request; shorten your messages from here on
• The instruction is buried in a long context; restate it, or move it into project instructions
• A model update changed its behavior mid-conversation; report the bug and switch to a different model
• The conversation hit a length limit; keep going and the instruction will apply again shortly

Claude declines a legitimate request about a sensitive topic. What is the productive move?

• Tell Claude that you accept full responsibility for how the answer will be used and retry
• Move the request to a different model that is known to refuse fewer sensitive topics
• Add context about who you are and the legitimate purpose, then rephrase the request
• Split the request into smaller pieces that each look harmless and combine the answers yourself

Claude's answer ignores an attached document. First thing to check?

• That the document uploaded correctly and that your prompt refers to it explicitly
• Whether the conversation is too long and the document has dropped out of context
• Whether the model you selected supports file attachments of that size and type
• Whether the document contains text or only scanned images, which need conversion first

A conversation has drifted and answers are worse. What helps?

• Ask Claude to summarize the conversation so far and continue from that summary in the same chat
• Start a new conversation with a concise summary of the task and decisions so far
• Switch to a more capable model mid-conversation so it can recover the thread
• Shorten your messages so the model has less new text to process each turn

Claude says it cannot access a link you pasted. Why?

• The link is broken; check it in your browser and resend it once it loads
• The link is too long for the model to parse; shorten it with a URL shortener and try again
• It may not be able to browse, or the page may be restricted; paste the content instead
• The page needs a login; sign in yourself first and paste the link again, since the session carries over

Output is in the wrong format despite instructions. Fastest fix?

• Switch to a more capable model, since format compliance improves with model size
• Show a short example of the exact format you want
• Ask Claude to explain why it chose that format before trying again
• Repeat the same instruction more firmly and put it at the very end of the prompt