Enhancing Mathematical Reasoning in LLMs by Stepwise Correction

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Wu, Zhenyu, Zeng, Qingkai, Zhang, Zhihan, Tan, Zhaoxuan, Shen, Chao, Jiang, Meng
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Wu, Zhenyu
Zeng, Qingkai
Zhang, Zhihan
Tan, Zhaoxuan
Shen, Chao
Jiang, Meng
author_facet Wu, Zhenyu
Zeng, Qingkai
Zhang, Zhihan
Tan, Zhaoxuan
Shen, Chao
Jiang, Meng
contents Best-of-N decoding methods instruct large language models (LLMs) to generate multiple solutions, score each using a scoring function, and select the highest scored as the final answer to mathematical reasoning problems. However, this repeated independent process often leads to the same mistakes, making the selected solution still incorrect. We propose a novel prompting method named Stepwise Correction (StepCo) that helps LLMs identify and revise incorrect steps in their generated reasoning paths. It iterates verification and revision phases that employ a process-supervised verifier. The verify-then-revise process not only improves answer correctness but also reduces token consumption with fewer paths needed to generate. With StepCo, a series of LLMs demonstrate exceptional performance. Notably, using GPT-4o as the backend LLM, StepCo achieves an average accuracy of 94.1 across eight datasets, significantly outperforming the state-of-the-art Best-of-N method by +2.4, while reducing token consumption by 77.8%.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_12934
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Enhancing Mathematical Reasoning in LLMs by Stepwise Correction
Wu, Zhenyu
Zeng, Qingkai
Zhang, Zhihan
Tan, Zhaoxuan
Shen, Chao
Jiang, Meng
Computation and Language
Best-of-N decoding methods instruct large language models (LLMs) to generate multiple solutions, score each using a scoring function, and select the highest scored as the final answer to mathematical reasoning problems. However, this repeated independent process often leads to the same mistakes, making the selected solution still incorrect. We propose a novel prompting method named Stepwise Correction (StepCo) that helps LLMs identify and revise incorrect steps in their generated reasoning paths. It iterates verification and revision phases that employ a process-supervised verifier. The verify-then-revise process not only improves answer correctness but also reduces token consumption with fewer paths needed to generate. With StepCo, a series of LLMs demonstrate exceptional performance. Notably, using GPT-4o as the backend LLM, StepCo achieves an average accuracy of 94.1 across eight datasets, significantly outperforming the state-of-the-art Best-of-N method by +2.4, while reducing token consumption by 77.8%.
title Enhancing Mathematical Reasoning in LLMs by Stepwise Correction
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.12934