Pass@k Training for Adaptively Balancing Exploration and Exploitation of Large Reasoning Models

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Chen, Zhipeng, Qin, Xiaobo, Wu, Youbin, Ling, Yue, Ye, Qinghao, Zhao, Wayne Xin, Shi, Guang
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Chen, Zhipeng
Qin, Xiaobo
Wu, Youbin
Ling, Yue
Ye, Qinghao
Zhao, Wayne Xin
Shi, Guang
author_facet Chen, Zhipeng
Qin, Xiaobo
Wu, Youbin
Ling, Yue
Ye, Qinghao
Zhao, Wayne Xin
Shi, Guang
contents Reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR), which typically adopts Pass@1 as the reward, has faced the issues in balancing exploration and exploitation, causing policies to prefer conservative actions, converging to a local optimum. Identifying an appropriate reward metric is therefore crucial. Regarding the prior work, although Pass@k has been used in evaluation, its connection to LLM exploration ability in RLVR remains largely overlooked. To investigate this, we first use Pass@k as the reward to train the policy model (i.e., $\textbf{Pass@k Training}$), and observe the improvement on its exploration ability. Next, we derive an analytical solution for the advantage of Pass@k Training, leading to an efficient and effective process. Building on this, our analysis reveals that exploration and exploitation are not inherently conflicting objectives, while they can mutually enhance each other. Moreover, Pass@k Training with analytical derivation essentially involves directly designing the advantage function. Inspired by this, we preliminarily explore the advantage design for RLVR, showing promising results and highlighting a potential future direction.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_10751
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Pass@k Training for Adaptively Balancing Exploration and Exploitation of Large Reasoning Models
Chen, Zhipeng
Qin, Xiaobo
Wu, Youbin
Ling, Yue
Ye, Qinghao
Zhao, Wayne Xin
Shi, Guang
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
Reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR), which typically adopts Pass@1 as the reward, has faced the issues in balancing exploration and exploitation, causing policies to prefer conservative actions, converging to a local optimum. Identifying an appropriate reward metric is therefore crucial. Regarding the prior work, although Pass@k has been used in evaluation, its connection to LLM exploration ability in RLVR remains largely overlooked. To investigate this, we first use Pass@k as the reward to train the policy model (i.e., $\textbf{Pass@k Training}$), and observe the improvement on its exploration ability. Next, we derive an analytical solution for the advantage of Pass@k Training, leading to an efficient and effective process. Building on this, our analysis reveals that exploration and exploitation are not inherently conflicting objectives, while they can mutually enhance each other. Moreover, Pass@k Training with analytical derivation essentially involves directly designing the advantage function. Inspired by this, we preliminarily explore the advantage design for RLVR, showing promising results and highlighting a potential future direction.
title Pass@k Training for Adaptively Balancing Exploration and Exploitation of Large Reasoning Models
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.10751