Cumulative Reasoning with Large Language Models
Pith reviewed 2026-05-24 07:49 UTC · model grok-4.3
The pith
Cumulative Reasoning improves LLM problem solving by building a graph of verified intermediate propositions through proposer, verifier, and reporter roles.
A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.
Core claim
By orchestrating LLMs to propose propositions, verify them for correctness and consistency, and report a solution composed from the verified set, Cumulative Reasoning constructs a dynamic DAG that substantially raises accuracy on complex reasoning tasks.
What carries the argument
Dynamic Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) of verified propositions, assembled by proposers generating candidate steps, verifiers checking each one, and reporters selecting a consistent solution path.
If this is right
- On the FOLIO logical inference dataset, accuracy reaches 98.04 percent, up to 9.3 percent above previous methods.
- On the Game of 24 puzzle, accuracy reaches 98 percent, a 24 percent absolute gain over prior approaches.
- On the MATH dataset, overall accuracy rises 4.2 percent, with a 43 percent relative gain on the hardest level-5 problems.
- When a code interpreter is added, the method outperforms Program of Thought by 38.8 percent.
Where Pith is reading between the lines
- The same verifier-proposer loop could be inserted into scientific reasoning pipelines to flag inconsistent hypotheses before they reach a final answer.
- If verifiers are drawn from a different model family than proposers, the assumption of unbiased error detection might strengthen further.
- The DAG structure naturally supports backtracking over rejected branches, which could be exposed as an explicit search parameter in future extensions.
Load-bearing premise
Verifier instances can reliably detect errors or contradictions in propositions generated by the same model family without systematic bias.
What would settle it
A test set of problems where subtle logical contradictions are deliberately inserted into intermediate steps, then measuring whether verifier accuracy falls enough to erase the reported gains over baselines.
read the original abstract
Recent advancements in large language models (LLMs) have shown remarkable progress, yet their ability to solve complex problems remains limited. In this work, we introduce Cumulative Reasoning (CR), a structured framework that enhances LLM problem-solving by emulating human-like iterative and cumulative thought processes. CR orchestrates LLMs in three distinct roles: Proposer, Verifier(s), and Reporter, to systematically decompose tasks, generate and validate intermediate reasoning steps, and compose them into a solution by building a dynamic Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) of verified propositions. This approach substantially enhances problem-solving capabilities. We demonstrate CR's advantage through several complex reasoning tasks: it outperforms existing methods in logical inference tasks with up to a 9.3% improvement, achieving 98.04% accuracy on the curated FOLIO wiki dataset. In the Game of 24, it achieves 98% accuracy, marking a 24% improvement over previous methods. In solving MATH problems, CR achieves a 4.2% increase from previous methods and a 43% relative improvement in the most challenging level 5 problems. When incorporating a code environment with CR, we further harness LLMs' reasoning capabilities and outperform the Program of Thought (PoT) method by 38.8%.
Editorial analysis
A structured set of objections, weighed in public.
Referee Report
Summary. The manuscript introduces Cumulative Reasoning (CR), a framework that assigns LLMs to Proposer, Verifier(s), and Reporter roles to generate, validate, and accumulate propositions into a dynamic DAG for complex reasoning. It reports large gains over baselines: 98.04% accuracy on FOLIO, 98% on Game of 24 (24% absolute improvement), 4.2% absolute (43% relative on level-5) on MATH, and 38.8% over Program of Thought when code is added.
Significance. If the reported gains are shown to be robust, CR supplies a concrete, role-separated mechanism for iterative verification that could be adopted in other multi-step reasoning pipelines. The explicit construction of a verified DAG is a clear methodological contribution that distinguishes it from single-pass or self-consistency baselines.
major comments (3)
- [Abstract] Abstract: the headline accuracies (98.04% FOLIO, 98% Game of 24, 4.2% MATH) are stated without any information on number of runs, standard deviation, prompt templates, model versions, or data-leakage controls, rendering the numerical claims impossible to evaluate.
- [Framework description (roles and DAG construction)] Framework description (roles and DAG construction): the entire performance advantage rests on the Verifier(s) correctly rejecting invalid propositions produced by the Proposer (same model family), yet no precision, recall, false-positive rate, or human-agreement statistics for the verifier are supplied; without this measurement the DAG cannot be shown to improve soundness rather than merely propagate the proposer's blind spots.
- [Experiments (Game of 24 and MATH results)] Experiments (Game of 24 and MATH results): the 24% absolute and 43% relative gains are presented as direct comparisons, but no ablation isolating the verifier component or measuring disagreement between proposer and verifier outputs is reported, so it is unclear whether the cumulative DAG, rather than prompt engineering or sampling, drives the improvement.
minor comments (1)
- [Abstract] The abstract mentions 'up to a 9.3% improvement' on logical inference without naming the exact baseline method or dataset split.
Simulated Author's Rebuttal
We thank the referee for the constructive feedback. We address each major comment below and will incorporate revisions to improve clarity and rigor.
read point-by-point responses
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Referee: [Abstract] Abstract: the headline accuracies (98.04% FOLIO, 98% Game of 24, 4.2% MATH) are stated without any information on number of runs, standard deviation, prompt templates, model versions, or data-leakage controls, rendering the numerical claims impossible to evaluate.
Authors: We agree that the abstract would benefit from additional context on the experimental conditions. In the revised manuscript we will add a brief statement or footnote specifying the number of runs, standard deviations (where computed), prompt templates, model versions, and data-leakage controls. revision: yes
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Referee: [Framework description (roles and DAG construction)] Framework description (roles and DAG construction): the entire performance advantage rests on the Verifier(s) correctly rejecting invalid propositions produced by the Proposer (same model family), yet no precision, recall, false-positive rate, or human-agreement statistics for the verifier are supplied; without this measurement the DAG cannot be shown to improve soundness rather than merely propagate the proposer's blind spots.
Authors: The referee correctly notes that direct evaluation of the verifier is important for establishing that the DAG improves soundness. While end-to-end gains provide indirect evidence, we did not report verifier-specific metrics. We will add a dedicated analysis subsection that measures verifier precision, recall, and human agreement on sampled propositions from each benchmark. revision: yes
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Referee: [Experiments (Game of 24 and MATH results)] Experiments (Game of 24 and MATH results): the 24% absolute and 43% relative gains are presented as direct comparisons, but no ablation isolating the verifier component or measuring disagreement between proposer and verifier outputs is reported, so it is unclear whether the cumulative DAG, rather than prompt engineering or sampling, drives the improvement.
Authors: We recognize that isolating the verifier's contribution would strengthen the experimental claims. We will include new ablation studies that remove or weaken the verifier and report disagreement rates between proposer and verifier outputs to demonstrate that the cumulative DAG structure, rather than sampling alone, accounts for the observed gains. revision: yes
Circularity Check
No circularity: empirical framework evaluated on external benchmarks
full rationale
The paper introduces Cumulative Reasoning as an empirical orchestration of LLM roles (Proposer, Verifier, Reporter) to build a DAG of propositions, with performance measured directly on public benchmarks (FOLIO, Game of 24, MATH). No equations, fitted parameters, self-citations as load-bearing premises, or ansatzes are described that would reduce any claimed result to its own inputs by construction. The method's soundness assumptions (e.g., verifier reliability) are testable against external ground truth and do not create definitional equivalence between inputs and outputs.
Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger
invented entities (2)
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Proposer, Verifier(s), Reporter roles
no independent evidence
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Dynamic DAG of verified propositions
no independent evidence
Lean theorems connected to this paper
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IndisputableMonolith/Foundation/AbsoluteFloorClosure.leanabsolute_floor_iff_bare_distinguishability unclear?
unclearRelation between the paper passage and the cited Recognition theorem.
CR orchestrates LLMs in three distinct roles—Proposer, Verifier(s), and Reporter—to systematically decompose tasks, generate and validate intermediate reasoning steps, and compose them into a solution by building a dynamic Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) of verified propositions.
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IndisputableMonolith/Foundation/ArithmeticFromLogic.leanLogicNat ≃ Nat recovery unclear?
unclearRelation between the paper passage and the cited Recognition theorem.
This approach is inspired by ... principles from intuitionistic logic and mathematical constructivism which emphasize the constructive nature of proofs built from validated steps
What do these tags mean?
- matches
- The paper's claim is directly supported by a theorem in the formal canon.
- supports
- The theorem supports part of the paper's argument, but the paper may add assumptions or extra steps.
- extends
- The paper goes beyond the formal theorem; the theorem is a base layer rather than the whole result.
- uses
- The paper appears to rely on the theorem as machinery.
- contradicts
- The paper's claim conflicts with a theorem or certificate in the canon.
- unclear
- Pith found a possible connection, but the passage is too broad, indirect, or ambiguous to say the theorem truly supports the claim.
Forward citations
Cited by 8 Pith papers
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Understanding and Mitigating Spurious Signal Amplification in Test-Time Reinforcement Learning for Math Reasoning
DDRL reduces spurious reward noise in test-time RL for math by excluding ambiguous samples, using fixed advantages, and adding consensus-based updates, outperforming prior TTRL methods on math benchmarks.
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Math-Shepherd: Verify and Reinforce LLMs Step-by-step without Human Annotations
Math-Shepherd is an automatically trained process reward model that scores solution steps to verify and reinforce LLMs, lifting Mistral-7B from 77.9% to 89.1% on GSM8K and 28.6% to 43.5% on MATH.
-
Adapt to Thrive! Adaptive Power-Mean Policy Optimization for Improved LLM Reasoning
APMPO boosts average Pass@1 scores on math reasoning benchmarks by 3 points over GRPO by using an adaptive power-mean policy objective and feedback-driven clipping bounds in RLVR training.
-
Free Energy-Driven Reinforcement Learning with Adaptive Advantage Shaping for Unsupervised Reasoning in LLMs
FREIA applies free energy principles and adaptive advantage shaping to unsupervised RL, outperforming baselines by 0.5-3.5 Pass@1 points on math reasoning with a 1.5B model.
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On the Diagram of Thought
Diagram of Thought (DoT) is a controller-light framework in which an LLM builds typed reasoning diagrams validated online and interpreted as diagrams in a slice topos whose synthesis is a finite limit.
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R1-Onevision: Advancing Generalized Multimodal Reasoning through Cross-Modal Formalization
R1-Onevision turns images into structured text for multimodal reasoning, trains on a custom dataset with RL, and claims SOTA results on an educational benchmark.
-
Multi-Agent Collaboration Mechanisms: A Survey of LLMs
The survey organizes LLM-based multi-agent collaboration mechanisms into a framework with dimensions of actors, types, structures, strategies, and coordination protocols, reviews applications across domains, and ident...
Reference graph
Works this paper leans on
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[1]
For example, properties involving uncountably many real numbers often cannot be expressed in FOL
Limitations of Expressiveness (L¨ owenheim, 1967): FOL even lacks the expressive power to capture some properties of the real numbers. For example, properties involving uncountably many real numbers often cannot be expressed in FOL. In addition, properties requiring quantification over sets of real numbers or functions from real numbers to real numbers ca...
work page 1967
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[2]
Translation Misalignment: Risk of semantic discrepancies during translation, rendering resolutions ineffective. For instance, translating statements as ∀Bird(x) ⇒ CanFly(x) and ∀x(Fly(x) ⇒ Wings(x)) may cause a misalignment between “CanFly” and “Fly”, leading to flawed conclusions. It often fails to capture the full richness and ambiguity of natural langu...
work page 1990
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[3]
a representative who reads this report
Undecidability: The general problem of determining the truth of a statement in FOL is undecidable (Turing et al., 1936; Chimakonam, 2012) (deeply connected to the halting problem), constraining its applicability for automated reasoning in complex tasks. C.1 Illustrative example on higher-order logic Here we present a refined example derived from the FraCa...
work page 1936
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[4]
Most of the representatives who read the report have a positive attitude towards it
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[5]
No two representatives have read it at the same time, and they may have different opinions about it
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[6]
No representative took less than half a day to read the report
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[7]
There are sixteen representatives. • Hypothesis: It took the representatives more than a week to read the report, and most found it valuable. • Label: [True] • Higher-Order Logic Premises : 1. most(λx.representative(x) ∧ reads(x, report), λx.has positive attitude(x, report)) 2. ¬∃x, y (x ̸= y ∧ representative(x) ∧ representative(y)∧ read at same time(x, y...
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[8]
¬∃x(representative(x) ∧ took less than half day(λy.read(y, report)))
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[9]
count( λx.representative(x)) = 16 • Higher-Order Logic Hypothesis : ∃t(total reading time(report) > 7 ∧ time unit(t, day))∧ most(λx.representative(x), λx.found valuable(x, report)) [Cumulative Reasoning by GPT-4] • Generated Propositions :
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[10]
“Using P1 and P2, we can deduce Q1: Every representative read the report at a different time, and most representatives found the report valuable.”
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[11]
“Using P3 and Q1, we deduce Q2: The total reading time must be at least 8 days. (since 16 representatives each took at least half a day).”
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[12]
Using Q2 and P4, we deduce Q3: The representatives took at least 8 days to read the report
“Using Q2 and P4, we deduce Q3: The representatives took at least 8 days to read the report.” • Reasoning: “Based on the intermediate propositions Q1, Q2, and Q3, the hypothesis that it took the representatives more than a week to read the report, and most found it valuable, is confirmed as True.” • Prediction: [True] (Correct) 26 D Appendix for Examples ...
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[13]
¬(∃x)(Giant(x) ∧ ¬GoodPerformance(x))
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[14]
∀x (GoodPerformance(x) → UsedByResearchers(x))
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[15]
∀x (UsedByResearchers(x) → Popular(x))
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[16]
BERT Given that BERT is a giant language model, premise (4) implies that GPT-3 is also a giant language model. However, the premises do not explicitly provide information regarding GPT-3’s performance or usage by researchers, and hence no definitive conclusion on its popularity can be drawn. Prediction: [Unknown] (Incorrect) [Cumulative Reasoning by GPT-4...
work page 2023
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[17]
The roots of the polynomial are distinct integers, and the leading coefficient is 2, so the roots must be divisors of 66 2 = 33
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[18]
The divisors of 33 are ±1, ±3, ±11, ±33
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[19]
The sum of the roots of the polynomial is − an−1 an
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[20]
To minimize |an−1|, we should select the roots to be as close to zero as possible
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[21]
The smallest possible sum of the roots is −1 − 3 + 11 + 33 = 40,
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[22]
Thus, the smallest possible value of |an−1| is 2 × 40 = 80 .” • Answer: 80 (Wrong) [Cumulative Reasoning by GPT-4] • Generated Hints :
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[23]
“Hint 1 : Recall Vieta’s formulas, which relate the coefficients of a polynomial to the sums and products of its roots.”
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[24]
Hint 2 : The product of the roots of the polynomial is equal to − a0 an
“Hint 2 : The product of the roots of the polynomial is equal to − a0 an .”
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[25]
Hint 3 : The sum of the roots of the polynomial is equal to − an−1 an
“Hint 3 : The sum of the roots of the polynomial is equal to − an−1 an .”
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[26]
Hint 4 : Since the roots are distinct integers, consider the factors of − a0 an and their sums
“Hint 4 : Since the roots are distinct integers, consider the factors of − a0 an and their sums.” • Generated Simple Questions and Answers : Question 1: “What is the product of the roots of the polynomial f(x)?” Answer 1: “The product of the roots of the polynomial is − a0 an = − 66 2 = −33.” Question 2: “What are the possible sets of distinct integer roo...
-
[27]
The only types of mammals that lay eggs are platypuses and echidnas
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[28]
Platypuses are not hyrax
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[29]
Echidnas are not hyrax
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[30]
No mammals are invertebrates
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[31]
All animals are either vertebrates or invertebrates
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[32]
Grebes are not platypuses and also not echidnas. • Label: [False] [Chain-of-Thought Reasoning by GPT-4] • Reasoning: “The premises state that the only types of mammals that lay eggs are platypuses and echidnas. Hyraxes are mammals but are neither platypuses nor echidnas. Since the conclusion is about hyraxes laying eggs but there’s no direct information i...
-
[33]
All mammals are either vertebrates or invertebrates
“All mammals are either vertebrates or invertebrates.”
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[34]
Hyraxes do not lay eggs, as they are neither platypuses nor echidnas
“Hyraxes do not lay eggs, as they are neither platypuses nor echidnas.” • Reasoning: “We can deduce that the only types of mammals that lay eggs are platypuses and echidnas. Hyraxes are mammals, but they are neither platypuses nor echidnas. Therefore, hyraxes do not lay eggs.” • Prediction: [False] (Correct) [Example ID: 546] • Hypothesis: Extractive mode...
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[35]
A summarization model is always faithful if it uses content from the input documents
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[36]
Extractive models are a kind of summarization models
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[37]
Extractive model can only use content from the input documents. • Label: [False] 31 [Chain-of-Thought Reasoning by GPT-4] • Reasoning: “The premises state that a summarization model is always faithful if it uses content from the input documents. Extractive models are a kind of summarization model, and they can only use content from the input documents. Ho...
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[38]
“All extractive models are faithful summarization models since they use content from the input documents.”
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[39]
All faithful summarization models use content from the input documents
“All faithful summarization models use content from the input documents.” • Reasoning: “We can infer that extractive models are always faithful because they only use content from the input documents and satisfy the condition for a summarization model to be faithful. Therefore, the conclusion that extractive models are not always faithful is incorrect.” • ...
-
[40]
Greyhound racing is a competitive sport where spectators bet on greyhounds
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[41]
Coursing is a part of Greyhound racing
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[42]
Some competitive sports where spectators bet on things are banned
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[43]
Coursing involves spectators betting on a hare being pursued by greyhounds
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[44]
Hares are small game
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[45]
If a competitive sport involves spectators betting on small game, then it is banned. • Label: [False] [Chain-of-Thought Reasoning by GPT-4] • Reasoning: “The premises state that coursing is a part of greyhound racing, and it involves spectators betting on a hare being pursued by greyhounds. Hares are small game, and if a competitive sport involves spectat...
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[46]
If a competitive sport involves spectators betting on hares, then it is banned
“If a competitive sport involves spectators betting on hares, then it is banned.”
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[47]
Coursing is a competitive sport that involves spectators betting on small game
“Coursing is a competitive sport that involves spectators betting on small game.” • Reasoning: “We know that coursing is a competitive sport involving spectators betting on small game, specifically hares. The premises also state that if a competitive sport involves spectators betting on small game, then it is banned. Thus, we can deduce that there is a po...
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[48]
If you have room for dessert, you have room for broccoli
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[49]
Everyone at Luis’s dinner party has room for dessert, including Luis
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[50]
Mauricia does not have room for broccoli
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[51]
Luis’s dinner party is the first ever dinner party that Allison has attended
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[52]
Gustave has room for both broccoli and asparagus
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[53]
Broccoli and asparagus are both vegetables. • Label: [True] [Chain-of-Thought Reasoning by GPT-4] • Reasoning: “The premises state that if you have room for dessert, you have room for broccoli. Everyone at Luis’s dinner party has room for dessert, including Luis. However, we do not have information specifically about Allison having room for dessert or not...
- [54]
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[55]
Everyone at Luis’s dinner party, including Mauricia, has room for dessert
“Everyone at Luis’s dinner party, including Mauricia, has room for dessert.” • Reasoning: “We know that:
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[56]
If one has room for dessert, they have room for broccoli
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[57]
Everyone at Luis’s dinner party, including Luis and Allison, has room for dessert. Using these premises, we can infer that since everyone at Luis’s dinner party has room for dessert, they also have room for broccoli. Therefore, Allison, who is at Luis’s dinner party, must have room for broccoli.” • Prediction: [True] (Correct) E.2 Curating FOLIO wiki dataset
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[58]
34, 62, 162, 167, 228, 268, 526, 677, 679 ) 33
Missing common knowledge or contradictory to common knowledge; (9 in total, Example ID No. 34, 62, 162, 167, 228, 268, 526, 677, 679 ) 33
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[59]
Overly ambiguous problems failing to provide unequivocal answers; (37 in total, Example ID No. 141, 215, 216, 223, 252, 261, 298, 321, 330, 396, 402, 409, 411, 431, 432, 456, 457, 482, 483, 496, 563, 572, 599, 624, 629, 641, 654, 660, 673, 682, 698, 750 )
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[60]
Inherent inconsistencies presented within the premises; (2 in total, Example ID No. 640, 643 )
- [61]
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[62]
Incorrect answers. (24 in total, Example ID No. 9, 46, 52, 84, 100, 144, 273, 276, 299, 310, 322, 345, 367, 437, 452, 453, 464, 557, 573, 578, 605, 632, 671, 715 ) [Problem Description] • Example ID: 679 • Premises:
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[63]
Zaha Hadid is a British-Iraqi architect, artist and designer
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[64]
Zaha Hadid was born on 31 October 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq
work page 1950
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[65]
Hadid was a visiting professor of Architectural Design at the Yale School of Architecture
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[66]
• Hypothesis: Hadid was born in 1982
Max is an aspiring architecture student, and he plans to apply to Yale School of Architecture. • Hypothesis: Hadid was born in 1982. • FOL Label : [Unknown] • Human Label : [False] • Explanation: We can see that Zaha Hadid was born on 31 October 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq. This directly contradicts the hypothesis that Hadid was born in 1982. It is common knowl...
work page 1982
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[67]
The Croton River watershed is the drainage basin of the Croton River
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[68]
The Croton River is in southwestern New York
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[69]
Water from the Croton River watershed flows to the Bronx
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[70]
• Hypothesis: Water from the Croton River flows to the Bronx
The Bronx is in New York. • Hypothesis: Water from the Croton River flows to the Bronx. • Label: [Unknown] • Wrong Type: [Type 1: Missing common knowledge or contradictory to common knowledge in the premises] • Explanation: We understand that the Croton River is in southwestern New York, and the Bronx is also located in New York. It is stated that water f...
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[71]
Bernarda Bryson Shahn was a painter and lithographer
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[72]
Bernarda Bryson Shahn was born in Athens, Ohio
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[73]
Bernarda Bryson Shahn was married to Ben Shahn
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[74]
• Hypothesis: Bernarda Bryson Shahn was born in Greece
People born in Athens, Ohio are Americans. • Hypothesis: Bernarda Bryson Shahn was born in Greece. • Label: [Unknown] • Wrong Type: [Type 1: Missing common knowledge or contradictory to common knowledge in the premises] • Explanation: We know that Bernarda Bryson Shahn was born in Athens, Ohio. It is common knowledge that Greece is not in Ohio. It also st...
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[75]
The Golden State Warriors are a team from San Francisco
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[76]
The Golden State Warriors won the NBA finals
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[77]
All teams attending the NBA finals have more than thirty years of history
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[78]
Boston Celtics are a team that lost the NBA finals
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[79]
If a team wins the NBA finals, then they will have more income
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[80]
• Hypothesis: The Golden State Warriors will have more income for gate receipts
If a team wins or loses at the NBA finals, then they are attending the finals. • Hypothesis: The Golden State Warriors will have more income for gate receipts. • Label: [True] • Wrong Type: [Type 1: Missing common knowledge or contradictory to common knowledge in the premises] • Explanation: We know that the Golden State Warriors won the NBA finals and th...
discussion (0)
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