# Generative Evaluation of Complex Reasoning in Large Language Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.02810 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.02810/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 28 of its 46 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Apr 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/lr/reasoning-benchmarks-and-evaluation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 28 of 28)

- [Training Verifiers to Solve Math Word Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.14168/) (2021)
- [DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12948/) (2025)
- [Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11171/) (2022)
- [LiveCodeBench: Holistic and Contamination Free Evaluation of Large Language Models for Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.07974/) (2024)
- [AGIEval: A Human-Centric Benchmark for Evaluating Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.06364/) (2023)
- [Generative Language Modeling for Automated Theorem Proving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.03393/) (2020)
- [Draft, Sketch, and Prove: Guiding Formal Theorem Provers with Informal Proofs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.12283/) (2022)
- [LiveBench: A Challenging, Contamination-Limited LLM Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.19314/) (2024)
- [FOLIO: Natural Language Reasoning with First-Order Logic](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.00840/) (2022)
- [Leak, Cheat, Repeat: Data Contamination and Evaluation Malpractices in Closed-Source LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03927/) (2024)
- [ReClor: A Reading Comprehension Dataset Requiring Logical Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.04326/) (2020)
- [Retrieve, Program, Repeat: Complex Knowledge Base Question Answering via Alternate Meta-learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.15875/) (2020)
- [A Careful Examination of Large Language Model Performance on Grade School Arithmetic](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.00332/) (2024)
- [CLUTRR: A Diagnostic Benchmark for Inductive Reasoning from Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.06177/) (2019)
- [O1 Replication Journey: A Strategic Progress Report -- Part 1](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.18982/) (2024)
- [Evaluation of OpenAI o1: Opportunities and Challenges of AGI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.18486/) (2024)
- [Generalization or Memorization: Data Contamination and Trustworthy Evaluation for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.15938/) (2024)
- [Competitive Programming with Large Reasoning Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.06807/) (2025)
- [Learning to Prove Theorems via Interacting with Proof Assistants](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.09381/) (2019)
- [DyVal: Dynamic Evaluation of Large Language Models for Reasoning Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.17167/) (2023)
- [Thor: Wielding Hammers to Integrate Language Models and Automated Theorem Provers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.10893/) (2022)
- [Can we trust the evaluation on ChatGPT?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.12767/) (2023)
- [A Comparative Study on Reasoning Patterns of OpenAI's o1 Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13639/) (2024)
- [From LSAT: The Progress and Challenges of Complex Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.00648/) (2021)
- [Data Contamination Through the Lens of Time](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.10628/) (2023)
- [Formal-LLM: Integrating Formal Language and Natural Language for Controllable LLM-based Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.00798/) (2024)
- [MR-Ben: A Meta-Reasoning Benchmark for Evaluating System-2 Thinking in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.13975/) (2024)
- [LINGOLY: A Benchmark of Olympiad-Level Linguistic Reasoning Puzzles in Low-Resource and Extinct Languages](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.06196/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [HardcoreLogic: Challenging Large Reasoning Models with Long-tail Logic Puzzle Games](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.12563/) (2025)
- [Flying Pigs, FaR and Beyond: Evaluating LLM Reasoning in Counterfactual Worlds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.22318/) (2025)
- [UniCode: Augmenting Evaluation for Code Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.17868/) (2025)
- [AEGIS: Exploring the Limit of World Knowledge Capabilities for Unified Mulitmodal Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.00561/) (2026)
- [Harbor Adapters and Harbor-Index: Infrastructure and a Curated Meta-Dataset for Large-Scale Agentic Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.04298/) (2026)
- [A visual large language foundational model for medical image recognition using clinician-contributed online resources](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.06914/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

With powerful large language models (LLMs) demonstrating superhuman reasoning capabilities, a critical question arises: Do LLMs genuinely reason, or do they merely recall answers from their extensive, web-scraped training datasets? Publicly released benchmarks inevitably become contaminated once incorporated into subsequent LLM training sets, undermining their reliability as faithful assessments. To address this, we introduce KUMO, a generative evaluation framework designed specifically for assessing reasoning in LLMs. KUMO synergistically combines LLMs with symbolic engines to dynamically produce diverse, multi-turn reasoning tasks that are partially observable and adjustable in difficulty. Through an automated pipeline, KUMO continuously generates novel tasks across open-ended domains, compelling models to demonstrate genuine generalization rather than memorization. We evaluated 23 state-of-the-art LLMs on 5,000 tasks across 100 domains created by KUMO, benchmarking their reasoning abilities against university students. Our findings reveal that many LLMs have outperformed university-level performance on easy reasoning tasks, and reasoning-scaled LLMs reach university-level performance on complex reasoning challenges. Moreover, LLM performance on KUMO tasks correlates strongly with results on newly released real-world reasoning benchmarks, underscoring KUMO's value as a robust, enduring assessment tool for genuine LLM reasoning capabilities.