mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Learning to Reason from Feedback at Test-Time

arXiv 2502.15771 ↗First posted 16 Feb 2025cs.LG cs.AI cs.CLcited by 10

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

Abstract (arXiv)

Solving complex tasks in a single attempt is challenging for large language models (LLMs). Iterative interaction with the environment and feedback is often required to achieve success, making effective feedback utilization a critical topic. Existing approaches either struggle with length generalization or rely on naive retries without leveraging prior information. In this paper, we introduce FTTT, a novel paradigm that formulates feedback utilization as an optimization problem at test time. Additionally, we propose a learnable test-time optimizer, OpTune, to effectively exploit feedback. Experiments on two LLMs across four reasoning datasets demonstrate that FTTT and OpTune achieve superior scalability and performance.

Key facts. Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Test-time compute and efficient thinking, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 20 of its 55 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 16 Feb 2025.

Builds on

20 of 55 references.

Closest ancestors · 5

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Can 1B LLM Surpass 405B LLM? Rethinking Compute-Optimal Test-Time Scaling10 Feb
  2. 2025Competitive Programming with Large Reasoning Models3 Feb
  3. 2025s1: Simple test-time scaling31 Jan
  4. 2024Scaling LLM Test-Time Compute Optimally can be More Effective than Scaling Model Parameters6 Aug
  5. 2024Inference Scaling Laws: An Empirical Analysis of Compute-Optimal Inference for Problem-Solving with Language Models1 Aug

Other references · 15

  1. 2014Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimizationcited by 37,240
  2. 2024The Llama 3 Herd of Modelscited by 14,715
  3. 2021Training Verifiers to Solve Math Word Problemscited by 10,109
  4. 2021Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Codecited by 8,320
  5. 2021Program Synthesis with Large Language Modelscited by 3,637
  6. 2023Mistral 7Bcited by 3,164
  7. 2024Qwen2.5-Math Technical Report: Toward Mathematical Expert Model via Self-Improvementcited by 1,090
  8. 2024Large Language Monkeys: Scaling Inference Compute with Repeated Samplingcited by 991
  9. 2025rStar-Math: Small LLMs Can Master Math Reasoning with Self-Evolved Deep Thinkingcited by 313
  10. 2019On the Measure of Intelligencecited by 144
  11. 2024The Surprising Effectiveness of Test-Time Training for Few-Shot Learningcited by 96
  12. 2024Physics of Language Models: Part 2.2, How to Learn From Mistakes on Grade-School Math Problemscited by 50
3 more
  1. 2024With Greater Text Comes Greater Necessity: Inference-Time Training Helps Long Text Generationcited by 37
  2. 2023Learning to (Learn at Test Time)cited by 17
  3. 2024Differential Transformercited by 13

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

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

10 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025Less is More: Improving LLM Reasoning with Minimal Test-Time Intervention
  2. 2024Enhancing LLM Reasoning via Critique Models with Test-Time and Training-Time Supervision
  3. 2024CriticBench: Benchmarking LLMs for Critique-Correct Reasoning
  4. 2025Reasoning on a Budget: A Survey of Adaptive and Controllable Test-Time Compute in LLMs
  5. 2025Thinking on the Fly: Test-Time Reasoning Enhancement via Latent Thought Policy Optimization
  6. 2024Language Models are Hidden Reasoners: Unlocking Latent Reasoning Capabilities via Self-Rewarding
  7. 2023TART: A plug-and-play Transformer module for task-agnostic reasoning
  8. 2025Prompting Test-Time Scaling Is A Strong LLM Reasoning Data Augmentation