Claude Sonnet vs Opus: when to spend the extra money

End-of-lesson check

15 questions · take it digitally for instant feedback at tendril.neural-forge.io/learn/quiz/end-builders-modelfamilies-ai-sonnet-vs-opus-when-to-spend-r11a8-teen

1. A developer needs to summarize meeting notes into bullet points every day. Which model should they use by default?

   1. Opus, because it handles all text tasks better
   2. Haiku, because it's the cheapest option available
   3. Sonnet, because it's fast and cheap for routine tasks
   4. Opus, because summarization requires high accuracy

2. A student is debugging a complex program with nested loops and multiple edge cases. Their first attempt with Sonnet produced incorrect results. What should they try next?

   1. Give up on the problem entirely
   2. Run the same prompt on Opus to see if it gets the answer right
   3. Submit the incorrect answer anyway
   4. Use Haiku because it's faster

3. What is the primary reason the lesson recommends starting with the cheaper model?

   1. Cheap models are newer technology
   2. Expensive models will damage your project
   3. Most tasks (about 80%) don't require the most powerful model
   4. Cheaper models are always more accurate

4. Which of these tasks would be WORST suited for Opus and best suited for Sonnet?

   1. Analyzing a large codebase for security bugs
   2. Solving a math proof with 15 steps
   3. Translating a paragraph into French
   4. Writing a multi-step algorithm with recursion

5. A team is building a chatbot that answers customer questions. They need fast responses at low cost. Which model fits best?

   1. Sonnet, because it balances speed, cost, and capability
   2. Haiku, because it's the cheapest
   3. Haiku, because chatbots are simple
   4. Opus, because customers need perfect answers

6. The lesson suggests a specific experiment to understand model differences. What is it?

   1. Look at online reviews of the models
   2. Take the same hard prompt and run it on both Sonnet and Opus
   3. Read the model pricing pages
   4. Ask a teacher which model is better

7. A data scientist needs to classify millions of emails as spam or not spam at the lowest possible cost. Which model should they use?

   1. Sonnet, because it's balanced
   2. Haiku, because bulk classification is its recommended use case
   3. Opus, because classification is complex
   4. Claude, because it has better spam filters

8. What does it mean to 'default' to a model, in the context of this lesson?

   1. Use that model first unless you have a reason to switch
   2. Always use that model for every single task
   3. Never use that model under any circumstances
   4. Only use that model for important tasks

9. A developer writes code refactoring scripts that run dozens of times per day. The outputs are correct but need to be fast and cheap. What model should they choose?

   1. Opus, because it writes the best code
   2. Haiku, because code is just text
   3. Sonnet, because refactoring is listed as a Sonnet-appropriate task
   4. Opus, because it's the most recent model

10. Which phrase best describes when to upgrade from Sonnet to Opus?

    1. When Opus is on sale
    2. When you feel like trying something new
    3. When you have evidence Sonnet isn't enough
    4. When your boss tells you to

11. A student is working on a long reasoning problem that requires following multiple chains of logic. They tried Sonnet and got a partially wrong answer. What does the lesson suggest?

    1. Ask a human for help instead
    2. Use Haiku for better speed
    3. Accept the wrong answer and move on
    4. Try Opus because long reasoning is its strength

12. A writer wants to generate several drafts of a blog post quickly and cheaply to compare ideas. Which model fits this use case?

    1. Haiku, because it's the fastest
    2. Haiku, because drafts are simple
    3. Opus, because it produces the best drafts
    4. Sonnet, because drafting is explicitly listed as a Sonnet task

13. What makes Opus the preferred choice for 'multi-step reasoning' tasks?

    1. It was released more recently
    2. It costs less than Sonnet
    3. It responds faster than other models
    4. It has stronger capabilities for complex, multi-step problems

14. Why does the lesson emphasize comparing quality AND cost when testing models?

    1. Quality is always more important than cost
    2. Because the goal is value, not just raw capability
    3. Because Opus is always better
    4. Cost doesn't matter for AI models

15. A developer notices that Sonnet usually gets their code right, but fails on one specific complicated function. Based on the lesson, what should they do?

    1. Always use Opus for everything going forward
    2. Continue using Sonnet but try Opus just for that tricky function
    3. Stop working on the project
    4. Use Haiku for that specific function