mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Optimizing Language Model's Reasoning Abilities with Weak Supervision

arXiv 2405.04086 ↗First posted 7 May 2024cs.CLcited by 15

On the map: LLM reasoning → Test-time compute and efficient thinking

Abstract (arXiv)

While Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated proficiency in handling complex queries, much of the past work has depended on extensively annotated datasets by human experts. However, this reliance on fully-supervised annotations poses scalability challenges, particularly as models and data requirements grow. To mitigate this, we explore the potential of enhancing LLMs' reasoning abilities with minimal human supervision. In this work, we introduce self-reinforcement, which begins with Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) of the model using a small collection of annotated questions. Then it iteratively improves LLMs by learning from the differences in responses from the SFT and unfinetuned models on unlabeled questions. Our approach provides an efficient approach without relying heavily on extensive human-annotated explanations. However, current reasoning benchmarks typically only include golden-reference answers or rationales. Therefore, we present textscPuzzleBen, a weakly supervised benchmark that comprises 25,147 complex questions, answers, and human-generated rationales across various domains, such as brainteasers, puzzles, riddles, parajumbles, and critical reasoning tasks. A unique aspect of our dataset is the inclusion of 10,000 unannotated questions, enabling us to explore utilizing fewer supersized data to boost LLMs' inference capabilities. Our experiments underscore the significance of textscPuzzleBen, as well as the effectiveness of our methodology as a promising direction in future endeavors. Our dataset and code will be published soon on textttAnonymity Link.

Key facts. Cited by 15 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Test-time compute and efficient thinking, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 42 of its 60 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 7 May 2024.

Builds on

42 of 60 references.

Closest ancestors · 4

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024ReFT: Reasoning with Reinforced Fine-Tuning17 Jan
  2. 2023Automatically Correcting Large Language Models: Surveying the landscape of diverse self-correction strategies6 Aug
  3. 2023Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedback30 Mar
  4. 2022Large Language Models Can Self-Improve20 Oct

Other references · 38

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  3. 2023Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Modelscited by 12,865
  4. 2021Training Verifiers to Solve Math Word Problemscited by 9,743
  5. 2023Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Modelcited by 7,916
  6. 2020Scaling Laws for Neural Language Modelscited by 6,411
  7. 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 5,601
  8. 2022PaLM: Scaling Language Modeling with Pathwayscited by 5,304
  9. 2021Measuring Mathematical Problem Solving With the MATH Datasetcited by 5,203
  10. 2023Let's Verify Step by Stepcited by 3,598
  11. 2022OPT: Open Pre-trained Transformer Language Modelscited by 3,464
  12. 2022Training Compute-Optimal Large Language Modelscited by 2,927
26 more
  1. 2017TriviaQA: A Large Scale Distantly Supervised Challenge Dataset for Reading Comprehensioncited by 2,895
  2. 2022Do As I Can, Not As I Say: Grounding Language in Robotic Affordancescited by 2,302
  3. 2019Fine-Tuning Language Models from Human Preferencescited by 2,124
  4. 2022Least-to-Most Prompting Enables Complex Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 1,397
  5. 2016Temporal Ensembling for Semi-Supervised Learningcited by 1,054
  6. 2023Graph of Thoughts: Solving Elaborate Problems with Large Language Modelscited by 873
  7. 2023Reasoning with Language Model is Planning with World Modelcited by 846
  8. 2022Automatic Chain of Thought Prompting in Large Language Modelscited by 684
  9. 2019MathQA: Towards Interpretable Math Word Problem Solving with Operation-Based Formalismscited by 653
  10. 2017Program Induction by Rationale Generation : Learning to Solve and Explain Algebraic Word Problemscited by 642
  11. 2024Self-Play Fine-Tuning Converts Weak Language Models to Strong Language Modelscited by 552
  12. 2021Semi-Supervised Semantic Segmentation with Cross Pseudo Supervisioncited by 462
  13. 2023Weak-to-Strong Generalization: Eliciting Strong Capabilities With Weak Supervisioncited by 445
  14. 2020ReClor: A Reading Comprehension Dataset Requiring Logical Reasoningcited by 211
  15. 2022Faithful Reasoning Using Large Language Modelscited by 130
  16. 2023The CoT Collection: Improving Zero-shot and Few-shot Learning of Language Models via Chain-of-Thought Fine-Tuningcited by 106
  17. 2023SCOTT: Self-Consistent Chain-of-Thought Distillationcited by 103
  18. 2020The Cost of Training NLP Models: A Concise Overviewcited by 97
  19. 2021CREAK: A Dataset for Commonsense Reasoning over Entity Knowledgecited by 88
  20. 2024Can LLMs Learn from Previous Mistakes? Investigating LLMs' Errors to Boost for Reasoningcited by 69
  21. 2020LogiQA: A Challenge Dataset for Machine Reading Comprehension with Logical Reasoningcited by 68
  22. 2019Automatic adaptation of object detectors to new domains using self-trainingcited by 66
  23. 2021RiddleSense: Reasoning about Riddle Questions Featuring Linguistic Creativity and Commonsense Knowledgecited by 60
  24. 2022News Category Datasetcited by 42
  25. 2023Boosting Logical Reasoning in Large Language Models through a New Framework: The Graph of Thoughtcited by 41
  26. 2023BRAINTEASER: Lateral Thinking Puzzles for Large Language Modelscited by 18

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Citing papers per year: 2024: 3; 2025: 5; 2026: 7.

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  1. 2025Incentivizing Strong Reasoning from Weak Supervision
  2. 2024Can Small Language Models Help Large Language Models Reason Better?: LM-Guided Chain-of-Thought
  3. 2024Large Language Models Can Self-Improve in Long-context Reasoning
  4. 2025Advancing Reasoning in Large Language Models: Promising Methods and Approaches
  5. 2026Scaling LLM Reasoning from Minimal Labels: A Semi-Supervised Framework with a Lightweight Verifier
  6. 2025Climbing the Ladder of Reasoning: What LLMs Can-and Still Can't-Solve after SFT?
  7. 2025Making Small Language Models Efficient Reasoners: Intervention, Supervision, Reinforcement
  8. 2025Training Language Models to Reason Efficiently