Do Large Language Models Plan Answer Positions? Position Bias in Multiple-Choice Question Generation
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arXiv
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| Autores principales: | , , |
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| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866914527273025536 |
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| author | Tang, Xuemei Duan, Xufeng Cai, Zhenguang G. |
| author_facet | Tang, Xuemei Duan, Xufeng Cai, Zhenguang G. |
| contents | Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used to generate multiple-choice questions (MCQs), where correct answers should ideally be uniformly distributed across options. However, we observe that LLMs exhibit systematic position biases during generation. Through extensive experiments with 10 LLMs and 5 vision-language models (VLMs) on three MCQ generation tasks, we show that these biases are structured, with similar patterns emerging within model families. To investigate the underlying mechanisms, we conduct probing experiments and find that hidden representations in the question stem encode predictive signals of the correct answer position, suggesting that answer position may be implicitly planned during generation. Building on this insight, we apply activation steering to manipulate internal representations and influence answer position. Our results show that steering can partially control positional preferences and substantially shift answer position distributions. Our findings provide a practical framework for studying implicit positional planning in LLMs and highlight the importance of controllable generation for reliable MCQ construction and evaluation. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_01846 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Do Large Language Models Plan Answer Positions? Position Bias in Multiple-Choice Question Generation Tang, Xuemei Duan, Xufeng Cai, Zhenguang G. Computation and Language Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used to generate multiple-choice questions (MCQs), where correct answers should ideally be uniformly distributed across options. However, we observe that LLMs exhibit systematic position biases during generation. Through extensive experiments with 10 LLMs and 5 vision-language models (VLMs) on three MCQ generation tasks, we show that these biases are structured, with similar patterns emerging within model families. To investigate the underlying mechanisms, we conduct probing experiments and find that hidden representations in the question stem encode predictive signals of the correct answer position, suggesting that answer position may be implicitly planned during generation. Building on this insight, we apply activation steering to manipulate internal representations and influence answer position. Our results show that steering can partially control positional preferences and substantially shift answer position distributions. Our findings provide a practical framework for studying implicit positional planning in LLMs and highlight the importance of controllable generation for reliable MCQ construction and evaluation. |
| title | Do Large Language Models Plan Answer Positions? Position Bias in Multiple-Choice Question Generation |
| topic | Computation and Language |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.01846 |