Exposing the Achilles' Heel: Evaluating LLMs Ability to Handle Mistakes in Mathematical Reasoning

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Singh, Joykirat, Nambi, Akshay, Vineet, Vibhav
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Singh, Joykirat
Nambi, Akshay
Vineet, Vibhav
author_facet Singh, Joykirat
Nambi, Akshay
Vineet, Vibhav
contents Large Language Models (LLMs) have been applied to Math Word Problems (MWPs) with transformative impacts, revolutionizing how these complex problems are approached and solved in various domains including educational settings. However, the evaluation of these models often prioritizes final accuracy, overlooking the crucial aspect of reasoning capabilities. This work addresses this gap by focusing on the ability of LLMs to detect and correct reasoning mistakes. We introduce a novel dataset MWP-MISTAKE, incorporating MWPs with both correct and incorrect reasoning steps generated through rule-based methods and smaller language models. Our comprehensive benchmarking reveals significant insights into the strengths and weaknesses of state-of-the-art models, such as GPT-4o, GPT-4, GPT-3.5Turbo, and others. We highlight GPT-$o's superior performance in mistake detection and rectification and the persistent challenges faced by smaller models. Additionally, we identify issues related to data contamination and memorization, impacting the reliability of LLMs in real-world applications. Our findings emphasize the importance of rigorous evaluation of reasoning processes and propose future directions to enhance the generalization and robustness of LLMs in mathematical problem-solving.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_10834
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Exposing the Achilles' Heel: Evaluating LLMs Ability to Handle Mistakes in Mathematical Reasoning
Singh, Joykirat
Nambi, Akshay
Vineet, Vibhav
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Large Language Models (LLMs) have been applied to Math Word Problems (MWPs) with transformative impacts, revolutionizing how these complex problems are approached and solved in various domains including educational settings. However, the evaluation of these models often prioritizes final accuracy, overlooking the crucial aspect of reasoning capabilities. This work addresses this gap by focusing on the ability of LLMs to detect and correct reasoning mistakes. We introduce a novel dataset MWP-MISTAKE, incorporating MWPs with both correct and incorrect reasoning steps generated through rule-based methods and smaller language models. Our comprehensive benchmarking reveals significant insights into the strengths and weaknesses of state-of-the-art models, such as GPT-4o, GPT-4, GPT-3.5Turbo, and others. We highlight GPT-$o's superior performance in mistake detection and rectification and the persistent challenges faced by smaller models. Additionally, we identify issues related to data contamination and memorization, impacting the reliability of LLMs in real-world applications. Our findings emphasize the importance of rigorous evaluation of reasoning processes and propose future directions to enhance the generalization and robustness of LLMs in mathematical problem-solving.
title Exposing the Achilles' Heel: Evaluating LLMs Ability to Handle Mistakes in Mathematical Reasoning
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.10834