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Main Authors: Cheng, Liang, LI, Tianyi, Wang, Zhaowei, Steedman, Mark
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.20097
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author Cheng, Liang
LI, Tianyi
Wang, Zhaowei
Steedman, Mark
author_facet Cheng, Liang
LI, Tianyi
Wang, Zhaowei
Steedman, Mark
contents The performance of pre-trained Large Language Models (LLMs) is often sensitive to nuances in prompt templates, requiring careful prompt engineering, adding costs in terms of computing and human effort. In this study, we present experiments encompassing multiple LLMs variants of varying sizes aimed at probing their preference with different prompts. Through experiments on Question Answering, we show prompt preference consistency across LLMs of different sizes. We also show that this consistency extends to other tasks, such as Natural Language Inference. Utilizing this consistency, we propose a method to use a smaller model to select effective prompt templates for a larger model. We show that our method substantially reduces the cost of prompt engineering while consistently matching performance with optimal prompts among candidates. More importantly, our experiment shows the efficacy of our strategy across fourteen LLMs and its applicability to a broad range of NLP tasks, highlighting its robustness
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_20097
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle S2LPP: Small-to-Large Prompt Prediction across LLMs
Cheng, Liang
LI, Tianyi
Wang, Zhaowei
Steedman, Mark
Computation and Language
The performance of pre-trained Large Language Models (LLMs) is often sensitive to nuances in prompt templates, requiring careful prompt engineering, adding costs in terms of computing and human effort. In this study, we present experiments encompassing multiple LLMs variants of varying sizes aimed at probing their preference with different prompts. Through experiments on Question Answering, we show prompt preference consistency across LLMs of different sizes. We also show that this consistency extends to other tasks, such as Natural Language Inference. Utilizing this consistency, we propose a method to use a smaller model to select effective prompt templates for a larger model. We show that our method substantially reduces the cost of prompt engineering while consistently matching performance with optimal prompts among candidates. More importantly, our experiment shows the efficacy of our strategy across fourteen LLMs and its applicability to a broad range of NLP tasks, highlighting its robustness
title S2LPP: Small-to-Large Prompt Prediction across LLMs
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.20097