
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
Some mice live in three neighboring houses. Last night, every mouse left its house and moved to one of the other two houses, always taking the shortest route. The numbers in the diagram show the number of mice per house, yesterday and today. How many mice used the path at the bottom of the diagram?
A 9
B 11
C 12
D 16
E 19

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