TTCS: Test-Time Curriculum Synthesis for Self-Evolving
On the map: LLM reasoning → Test-time compute and efficient thinking
also in 1 more
Abstract (arXiv)
Test-Time Training offers a promising way to improve the reasoning ability of large language models (LLMs) by adapting the model using only the test questions. However, existing methods struggle with difficult reasoning problems for two reasons: raw test questions are often too difficult to yield high-quality pseudo-labels, and the limited size of test sets makes continuous online updates prone to instability. To address these limitations, we propose TTCS, a co-evolving test-time training framework. Specifically, TTCS initializes two policies from the same pretrained model: a question synthesizer and a reasoning solver. These policies evolve through iterative optimization: the synthesizer generates progressively challenging question variants conditioned on the test questions, creating a structured curriculum tailored to the solver's current capability, while the solver updates itself using self-consistency rewards computed from multiple sampled responses on both original test and synthetic questions. Crucially, the solver's feedback guides the synthesizer to generate questions aligned with the model's current capability, and the generated question variants in turn stabilize the solver's test-time training. Experiments show that TTCS consistently strengthens the reasoning ability on challenging mathematical benchmarks and transfers to general-domain tasks across different LLM backbones, highlighting a scalable path towards dynamically constructing test-time curricula for self-evolving. Our code and implementation details are available at https://github.com/XMUDeepLIT/TTCS.
Key facts. Cited by 19 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 17 of its 35 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 30 Jan 2026.
Builds on
17 of 35 references.
References · 17
- 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 5,708
- 2021Measuring Mathematical Problem Solving With the MATH Datasetcited by 5,371
- 2022Self-Instruct: Aligning Language Models with Self-Generated Instructionscited by 2,724
- 2024HybridFlow: A Flexible and Efficient RLHF Frameworkcited by 2,057
- 2025SimpleRL-Zoo: Investigating and Taming Zero Reinforcement Learning for Open Base Models in the Wildcited by 511
- 2025Absolute Zero: Reinforced Self-play Reasoning with Zero Datacited by 344
- 2024The Surprising Effectiveness of Test-Time Training for Few-Shot Learningcited by 96
- 2025SPICE: Self-Play In Corpus Environments Improves Reasoningcited by 83
- 2023Large Language Models Suffer From Their Own Output: An Analysis of the Self-Consuming Training Loopcited by 79
- 2025SeRL: Self-Play Reinforcement Learning for Large Language Models with Limited Datacited by 51
- 2025The Majority is not always right: RL training for solution aggregationcited by 47
- 2025VisPlay: Self-Evolving Vision-Language Models from Imagescited by 47
5 more
- 2025Learning to Solve and Verify: A Self-Play Framework for Code and Test Generationcited by 35
- 2025Guided Self-Evolving LLMs with Minimal Human Supervisioncited by 35
- 2025First SFT, Second RL, Third UPT: Continual Improving Multi-Modal LLM Reasoning via Unsupervised Post-Trainingcited by 34
- 2025Weaving Context Across Images: Improving Vision-Language Models through Focus-Centric Visual Chainscited by 12
- 2025ViPER: Empowering the Self-Evolution of Visual Perception Abilities in Vision-Language Modelcited by 11
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Citing papers per year: 2026: 19.
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- 2026Self-Improvements in Modern Agentic Systems: A Surveycited by 19
- 2026SPADE: Self-Play in Adaptive Synthetic Executable Environmentscited by 12
- 2026Scaling Self-Play with Self-Guidancecited by 10
- 2026Detecting and Mitigating the Correct-Answer Extinction Window in Test-Time Reinforcement Learning with Majority Votingcited by 7
- 2026Scaling Large Reasoning Models beyond Human Supervision: A Path toward Superintelligencecited by 5
- 2026AgentStream: How Well Do Self-Evolving LLM Agents Perform Under Streaming Tasks?cited by 4
- 2026Graph Engineering in the Era of LLM Agents: From Individual Intelligence to System Intelligencecited by 3
- 2026A Survey on Self-Improving Test-Time Intelligence: Feedback-Driven Adapting, Learning, and Scaling at Inferencecited by 3
- 2026TTSR: Test-Time Self-Evolving via Reflectioncited by 2
- 2026SERPO: Self-Evolving Rubric Policy Optimization for Open-Ended Test-Time Reinforcement Learningcited by 2
- 2026The Power of Test-Time Training for Approximate Samplingcited by 1
- 2026ForeDreamer: A Self-Evolving Dual-Agent Memory Architecture for Future Event Predictioncited by 1
7 more
- 2026Understanding Curriculum Learning in Large Language Models via Cross-Difficulty Optimization Dynamicscited by 0
- 2026Unsupervised Post-Training of Foundation Models: A Surveycited by 0
- 2026Rewarding Reasoning, Not Answers: Fixing and Bounding Test-Time Reinforcement Learning on Medical QAcited by 0
- 2026STRETCH the Boundaries: A Unified Self-Taught Framework for Progressive LLM Evolutioncited by 0
- 2026BEHAVE: Functional Behavior Modeling Enables Self-Improving Agents for Hardware Design and Verificationcited by 0
- 2026Questioning the Questions: Sustaining Self-Evolution in Reasoning Modelscited by 0
- 2026From Existing Methods to New Research Ideas: Two Perspectives on Recursive Self-Improvementcited by 0
- 2026From Existing Methods to New Research Ideas: Two Perspectives on Recursive Self-Improvement10 Oct 2026
- 2026Questioning the Questions: Sustaining Self-Evolution in Reasoning Models3 Oct 2026
- 2026BEHAVE: Functional Behavior Modeling Enables Self-Improving Agents for Hardware Design and Verification28 Sep 2026
- 2026STRETCH the Boundaries: A Unified Self-Taught Framework for Progressive LLM Evolution16 Sep 2026
- 2026Rewarding Reasoning, Not Answers: Fixing and Bounding Test-Time Reinforcement Learning on Medical QA15 Sep 2026
- 2026A Survey on Self-Improving Test-Time Intelligence: Feedback-Driven Adapting, Learning, and Scaling at Inference1 Sep 2026
- 2026Scaling Large Reasoning Models beyond Human Supervision: A Path toward Superintelligence31 Aug 2026
- 2026Unsupervised Post-Training of Foundation Models: A Survey25 Aug 2026
- 2026Graph Engineering in the Era of LLM Agents: From Individual Intelligence to System Intelligence21 Aug 2026
- 2026ForeDreamer: A Self-Evolving Dual-Agent Memory Architecture for Future Event Prediction21 Aug 2026
- 2026SPADE: Self-Play in Adaptive Synthetic Executable Environments19 Aug 2026
- 2026Understanding Curriculum Learning in Large Language Models via Cross-Difficulty Optimization Dynamics18 Aug 2026
7 more
- 2026AgentStream: How Well Do Self-Evolving LLM Agents Perform Under Streaming Tasks?31 Jul 2026
- 2026SERPO: Self-Evolving Rubric Policy Optimization for Open-Ended Test-Time Reinforcement Learning29 Jul 2026
- 2026Self-Improvements in Modern Agentic Systems: A Survey14 Jul 2026
- 2026The Power of Test-Time Training for Approximate Sampling9 Jun 2026
- 2026Detecting and Mitigating the Correct-Answer Extinction Window in Test-Time Reinforcement Learning with Majority Voting19 May 2026
- 2026Scaling Self-Play with Self-Guidance22 Apr 2026
- 2026TTSR: Test-Time Self-Evolving via Reflection6 Feb 2026
- 2026Detecting and Mitigating the Correct-Answer Extinction Window in Test-Time Reinforcement Learning with Majority Votingcited by 7
- 2026Scaling Large Reasoning Models beyond Human Supervision: A Path toward Superintelligencecited by 5
- 2026SERPO: Self-Evolving Rubric Policy Optimization for Open-Ended Test-Time Reinforcement Learningcited by 2
- 2026Questioning the Questions: Sustaining Self-Evolution in Reasoning Modelscited by 0
- 2026Questioning the Questions: Sustaining Self-Evolution in Reasoning Models3 Oct 2026
- 2026Scaling Large Reasoning Models beyond Human Supervision: A Path toward Superintelligence31 Aug 2026
- 2026SERPO: Self-Evolving Rubric Policy Optimization for Open-Ended Test-Time Reinforcement Learning29 Jul 2026
- 2026Detecting and Mitigating the Correct-Answer Extinction Window in Test-Time Reinforcement Learning with Majority Voting19 May 2026
- 2026SPADE: Self-Play in Adaptive Synthetic Executable Environmentscited by 12
- 2026Scaling Self-Play with Self-Guidancecited by 10
- 2026TTSR: Test-Time Self-Evolving via Reflectioncited by 2
- 2026BEHAVE: Functional Behavior Modeling Enables Self-Improving Agents for Hardware Design and Verificationcited by 0
- 2026BEHAVE: Functional Behavior Modeling Enables Self-Improving Agents for Hardware Design and Verification28 Sep 2026
- 2026SPADE: Self-Play in Adaptive Synthetic Executable Environments19 Aug 2026
- 2026Scaling Self-Play with Self-Guidance22 Apr 2026
- 2026TTSR: Test-Time Self-Evolving via Reflection6 Feb 2026
- 2026A Survey on Self-Improving Test-Time Intelligence: Feedback-Driven Adapting, Learning, and Scaling at Inferencecited by 3
- 2026The Power of Test-Time Training for Approximate Samplingcited by 1
- 2026ForeDreamer: A Self-Evolving Dual-Agent Memory Architecture for Future Event Predictioncited by 1
- 2026Understanding Curriculum Learning in Large Language Models via Cross-Difficulty Optimization Dynamicscited by 0
- 2026Unsupervised Post-Training of Foundation Models: A Surveycited by 0
- 2026Rewarding Reasoning, Not Answers: Fixing and Bounding Test-Time Reinforcement Learning on Medical QAcited by 0
- 2026STRETCH the Boundaries: A Unified Self-Taught Framework for Progressive LLM Evolutioncited by 0
- 2026From Existing Methods to New Research Ideas: Two Perspectives on Recursive Self-Improvementcited by 0
- 2026From Existing Methods to New Research Ideas: Two Perspectives on Recursive Self-Improvement10 Oct 2026
- 2026STRETCH the Boundaries: A Unified Self-Taught Framework for Progressive LLM Evolution16 Sep 2026
- 2026Rewarding Reasoning, Not Answers: Fixing and Bounding Test-Time Reinforcement Learning on Medical QA15 Sep 2026
- 2026A Survey on Self-Improving Test-Time Intelligence: Feedback-Driven Adapting, Learning, and Scaling at Inference1 Sep 2026
- 2026Unsupervised Post-Training of Foundation Models: A Survey25 Aug 2026
- 2026ForeDreamer: A Self-Evolving Dual-Agent Memory Architecture for Future Event Prediction21 Aug 2026
- 2026Understanding Curriculum Learning in Large Language Models via Cross-Difficulty Optimization Dynamics18 Aug 2026
- 2026The Power of Test-Time Training for Approximate Sampling9 Jun 2026
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2026Ladders of Thought: A Self-Evolving Curriculum of Progressively Simplified Reasoning Traces
- 2026DARC: Decoupled Asymmetric Reasoning Curriculum for LLM Evolution
- 2025Reasoning on a Budget: A Survey of Adaptive and Controllable Test-Time Compute in LLMs
- 2026DiSCTT: Consensus-Guided Self-Curriculum for Efficient Test-Time Adaptation in Reasoning
- 2025Self-Evolving Curriculum for LLM Reasoning
- 2026Policy of Thoughts: Scaling Test-Time Training for LLM Reasoning via Online Policy Evolution
- 2025A Model Can Help Itself: Reward-Free Self-Training for LLM Reasoning
- 2025Prompting Test-Time Scaling Is A Strong LLM Reasoning Data Augmentation