# Scoring, Reasoning, and Selecting the Best! Ensembling Large Language Models via a Peer-Review Process

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.23213 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.23213/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 49 of its 69 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 Dec 2025.

## Placed in

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

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 49)

- [Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09288/) (2023)
- [Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arena](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.05685/) (2023)
- [Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.03374/) (2021)
- [Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11171/) (2022)
- [Measuring Mathematical Problem Solving With the MATH Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.03874/) (2021)
- [Scaling Instruction-Finetuned Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.11416/) (2022)
- [TriviaQA: A Large Scale Distantly Supervised Challenge Dataset for Reading Comprehension](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.03551/) (2017)
- [A Survey on LLM-as-a-Judge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.15594/) (2024)
- [DeepSeek-V2: A Strong, Economical, and Efficient Mixture-of-Experts Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.04434/) (2024)
- [LIMA: Less Is More for Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11206/) (2023)
- [Large Language Models are not Fair Evaluators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.17926/) (2023)
- [Encouraging Divergent Thinking in Large Language Models through Multi-Agent Debate](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.19118/) (2023)
- [AlpacaFarm: A Simulation Framework for Methods that Learn from Human Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14387/) (2023)
- [RouteLLM: Learning to Route LLMs with Preference Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.18665/) (2024)
- [LLM-Blender: Ensembling Large Language Models with Pairwise Ranking and Generative Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.02561/) (2023)
- [From Generation to Judgment: Opportunities and Challenges of LLM-as-a-judge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.16594/) (2024)
- [LLMs-as-Judges: A Comprehensive Survey on LLM-based Evaluation Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05579/) (2024)
- [Prometheus 2: An Open Source Language Model Specialized in Evaluating Other Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.01535/) (2024)
- [GPTScore: Evaluate as You Desire](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.04166/) (2023)
- [Replacing Judges with Juries: Evaluating LLM Generations with a Panel of Diverse Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.18796/) (2024)
- [Meta-Rewarding Language Models: Self-Improving Alignment with LLM-as-a-Meta-Judge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.19594/) (2024)
- [More Agents Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.05120/) (2024)
- [Large Language Model Routing with Benchmark Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.15789/) (2023)
- [WRENCH: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Weak Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.11377/) (2021)
- [Wider and Deeper LLM Networks are Fairer LLM Evaluators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.01862/) (2023)
- [Harnessing Multiple Large Language Models: A Survey on LLM Ensemble](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.18036/) (2025)
- [Ensemble Learning for Heterogeneous Large Language Models with Deep Parallel Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.12715/) (2024)
- [Adaptation with Self-Evaluation to Improve Selective Prediction in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.11689/) (2023)
- [Harnessing the Power of Multiple Minds: Lessons Learned from LLM Routing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.00467/) (2024)
- [Bridging the Gap between Different Vocabularies for LLM Ensemble](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.09492/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Counterfactual Credit Policy Optimization for Multi-Agent Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.21563/) (2026)
- [Evolve as a Team: Collaborative Self-Evolution for LLM-based Multi-Agent Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.29790/) (2026)
- [Adaptive Robust Estimator for Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.21574/) (2026)
- [Policy Improvement Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.00860/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We propose LLM-PeerReview, an unsupervised LLM Ensemble method that selects the most ideal response from multiple LLM-generated candidates for each query, harnessing the collective wisdom of multiple models with diverse strengths. LLM-PeerReview is built on a novel, peer-review-inspired framework that offers a transparent and interpretable mechanism, while remaining fully unsupervised for flexible adaptability and generalization. Specifically, it operates in three stages: For scoring, we use the emerging LLM-as-a-Judge technique to evaluate each response by reusing multiple LLMs at hand; For reasoning, we can apply a straightforward averaging strategy or a principled graphical model-based truth inference algorithm to aggregate multiple scores to produce a final score for each response; Finally, the highest-scoring response is selected as the best ensemble output. LLM-PeerReview is conceptually simple and empirically powerful. Our results across four datasets show that the two variants of the proposed approach outperform the advanced model Smoothie-Global by 6.9% and 7.3% points, cross diverse task types including factual recall QA, math reasoning, and instruction following. Notably, we also establish a carefully curated benchmark suite for LLM Ensemble, integrating 12 methods across four classic datasets and three task families, all evaluated under a rigorous and consistent protocol. We hope this repository will help researchers reproduce the LLM Ensemble baselines.