1 min lesson
Three failure modes sink most submissions
Make the call in this situation: "Your take-home model says routing simple calls to a small model saves 15% of inference COGS. What single addition most increases a reviewer's trust in that claim?" Explain what supports it.
Step 1 of 2
Three failure modes sink most submissions. No stated assumptions, so no one can trust or challenge the numbers. A fence-sitting recommendation that lists five options and ranks none, which reads as analysis avoiding a decision. And numbers that don't reconcile to the known COGS total, which makes a reviewer distrust everything above them. Fix all three before polish.
Put the assumptions tab first, not buried last. Open your walkthrough with “here's what I assumed and where I'm least confident,” then show the sensitivity table proving the recommendation holds even when those assumptions are wrong. Volunteering your own uncertainty is the truth-seeking signal Cursor screens for and it disarms the obvious challenge before it's asked.