# GeoBench: Rethinking Multimodal Geometric Problem-Solving via Hierarchical Evaluation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.24119 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.24119/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Spatial and embodied reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 20 of its 40 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 30 Dec 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Spatial and embodied reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/lr/spatial-and-embodied-reasoning/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 20 of 20)

- [Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11903/) (2022)
- [DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12948/) (2025)
- [Qwen2.5-VL Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13923/) (2025)
- [Qwen2-VL: Enhancing Vision-Language Model's Perception of the World at Any Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.12191/) (2024)
- [LLaVA-OneVision: Easy Visual Task Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.03326/) (2024)
- [DeepSeek-VL2: Mixture-of-Experts Vision-Language Models for Advanced Multimodal Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.10302/) (2024)
- [Inter-GPS: Interpretable Geometry Problem Solving with Formal Language and Symbolic Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.04165/) (2021)
- [G-LLaVA: Solving Geometric Problem with Multi-Modal Large Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.11370/) (2023)
- [ChartX & ChartVLM: A Versatile Benchmark and Foundation Model for Complicated Chart Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.12185/) (2024)
- [MAVIS: Mathematical Visual Instruction Tuning with an Automatic Data Engine](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.08739/) (2024)
- [GeomVerse: A Systematic Evaluation of Large Models for Geometric Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.12241/) (2023)
- [A Multi-Modal Neural Geometric Solver with Textual Clauses Parsed from Diagram](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.11097/) (2023)
- [GeoEval: Benchmark for Evaluating LLMs and Multi-Modal Models on Geometry Problem-Solving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.10104/) (2024)
- [M3DBench: Let's Instruct Large Models with Multi-modal 3D Prompts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.10763/) (2023)
- [GeoSense: Evaluating Identification and Application of Geometric Principles in Multimodal Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.12597/) (2025)
- [CodePlot-CoT: Mathematical Visual Reasoning by Thinking with Code-Driven Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.11718/) (2025)
- [StructChart: On the Schema, Metric, and Augmentation for Visual Chart Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.11268/) (2023)
- [Euclid: Supercharging Multimodal LLMs with Synthetic High-Fidelity Visual Descriptions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.08737/) (2024)
- [TrustGeoGen: Formal-Verified Data Engine for Trustworthy Multi-modal Geometric Problem Solving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.15780/) (2025)
- [Newclid: A User-Friendly Replacement for AlphaGeometry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.11938/) (2024)

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

- [Milestones over Outcome: Unlocking Geometric Reasoning with Sub-Goal Verifiable Reward](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.05073/) (2026)
- [GeoChallenge: A Multi-Answer Multiple-Choice Benchmark for Geometric Reasoning with Diagrams](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.19252/) (2026)
- [PAGER: Bridging the Semantic-Execution Gap in Point-Precise Geometric GUI Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.15963/) (2026)
- [GeoSym127K: Scalable Symbolically-verifiable Synthesis for Multimodal Geometric Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.16371/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Geometric problem solving constitutes a critical branch of mathematical reasoning, requiring precise analysis of shapes and spatial relationships. Current evaluations of geometric reasoning in vision-language models (VLMs) face limitations, including the risk of test data contamination from textbook-based benchmarks, overemphasis on final answers over reasoning processes, and insufficient diagnostic granularity. To address these issues, we present GeoBench, a hierarchical benchmark featuring four reasoning levels in geometric problem-solving: Visual Perception, Goal-Oriented Planning, Rigorous Theorem Application, and Self-Reflective Backtracking. Through six formally verified tasks generated via TrustGeoGen, we systematically assess capabilities ranging from attribute extraction to logical error correction. Experiments reveal that while reasoning models like OpenAI-o3 outperform general MLLMs, performance declines significantly with increasing task complexity. Key findings demonstrate that sub-goal decomposition and irrelevant premise filtering critically influence final problem-solving accuracy, whereas Chain-of-Thought prompting unexpectedly degrades performance in some tasks. These findings establish GeoBench as a comprehensive benchmark while offering actionable guidelines for developing geometric problem-solving systems.