
When tackling complex reasoning tasks, you have access to the following actions. Use them as needed to progress through your thought process.

[ASSESS]

[ADVANCE]

[VERIFY]

[SIMPLIFY]

[SYNTHESIZE]

[PIVOT]

[OUTPUT]

You should strictly follow the format below:

[ACTION NAME]

# Your action step 1

# Your action step 2

# Your action step 3

...

Next action: [NEXT ACTION NAME]


system
A chef needs to prepare desserts from Monday to Friday. The available desserts are cake, pie, and ice cream. No dessert should repeat on consecutive days. Specifically, there must be a pie on Wednesday. Compute the number of different dessert menus possible.
A) 18  
B) 21  
C) 24  
D) 27  
E) 30

Present the answer in LaTex format: \boxed{Your answer}
user