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Main Authors: Zhang, Ziqian, Hu, Xingjian, Huang, Yue, Zhang, Kai, Chen, Ruoxi, Liu, Yixin, Wen, Qingsong, Xu, Kaidi, Zhang, Xiangliang, Gong, Neil Zhenqiang, Sun, Lichao
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.12424
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author Zhang, Ziqian
Hu, Xingjian
Huang, Yue
Zhang, Kai
Chen, Ruoxi
Liu, Yixin
Wen, Qingsong
Xu, Kaidi
Zhang, Xiangliang
Gong, Neil Zhenqiang
Sun, Lichao
author_facet Zhang, Ziqian
Hu, Xingjian
Huang, Yue
Zhang, Kai
Chen, Ruoxi
Liu, Yixin
Wen, Qingsong
Xu, Kaidi
Zhang, Xiangliang
Gong, Neil Zhenqiang
Sun, Lichao
contents Benchmarks establish a standardized evaluation framework to systematically assess the performance of large language models (LLMs), facilitating objective comparisons and driving advancements in the field. However, existing benchmarks fail to differentiate question difficulty, limiting their ability to effectively distinguish models' capabilities. To address this limitation, we propose RankLLM, a novel framework designed to quantify both question difficulty and model competency. RankLLM introduces difficulty as the primary criterion for differentiation, enabling a more fine-grained evaluation of LLM capabilities. RankLLM's core mechanism facilitates bidirectional score propagation between models and questions. The core intuition of RankLLM is that a model earns a competency score when it correctly answers a question, while a question's difficulty score increases when it challenges a model. Using this framework, we evaluate 30 models on 35,550 questions across multiple domains. RankLLM achieves 90% agreement with human judgments and consistently outperforms strong baselines such as IRT. It also exhibits strong stability, fast convergence, and high computational efficiency, making it a practical solution for large-scale, difficulty-aware LLM evaluation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_12424
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle RankLLM: Weighted Ranking of LLMs by Quantifying Question Difficulty
Zhang, Ziqian
Hu, Xingjian
Huang, Yue
Zhang, Kai
Chen, Ruoxi
Liu, Yixin
Wen, Qingsong
Xu, Kaidi
Zhang, Xiangliang
Gong, Neil Zhenqiang
Sun, Lichao
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Benchmarks establish a standardized evaluation framework to systematically assess the performance of large language models (LLMs), facilitating objective comparisons and driving advancements in the field. However, existing benchmarks fail to differentiate question difficulty, limiting their ability to effectively distinguish models' capabilities. To address this limitation, we propose RankLLM, a novel framework designed to quantify both question difficulty and model competency. RankLLM introduces difficulty as the primary criterion for differentiation, enabling a more fine-grained evaluation of LLM capabilities. RankLLM's core mechanism facilitates bidirectional score propagation between models and questions. The core intuition of RankLLM is that a model earns a competency score when it correctly answers a question, while a question's difficulty score increases when it challenges a model. Using this framework, we evaluate 30 models on 35,550 questions across multiple domains. RankLLM achieves 90% agreement with human judgments and consistently outperforms strong baselines such as IRT. It also exhibits strong stability, fast convergence, and high computational efficiency, making it a practical solution for large-scale, difficulty-aware LLM evaluation.
title RankLLM: Weighted Ranking of LLMs by Quantifying Question Difficulty
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.12424