# DARE-bench: Evaluating Modeling and Instruction Fidelity of LLMs in Data Science

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.24288 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.24288/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 28 of its 35 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 27 Feb 2026.

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

- [DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03300/) (2024)
- [Qwen3 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09388/) (2025)
- [ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03629/) (2022)
- [Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.03374/) (2021)
- [Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.04761/) (2023)
- [Program Synthesis with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.07732/) (2021)
- [SWE-bench: Can Language Models Resolve Real-World GitHub Issues?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06770/) (2023)
- [DAPO: An Open-Source LLM Reinforcement Learning System at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.14476/) (2025)
- [HybridFlow: A Flexible and Efficient RLHF Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.19256/) (2024)
- [Understanding R1-Zero-Like Training: A Critical Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20783/) (2025)
- [SGLang: Efficient Execution of Structured Language Model Programs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.07104/) (2023)
- [MLE-bench: Evaluating Machine Learning Agents on Machine Learning Engineering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.07095/) (2024)
- [DS-1000: A Natural and Reliable Benchmark for Data Science Code Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.11501/) (2022)
- [MLAgentBench: Evaluating Language Agents on Machine Learning Experimentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.03302/) (2023)
- [MathArena: Evaluating LLMs on Uncontaminated Math Competitions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.23281/) (2025)
- [Data Interpreter: An LLM Agent For Data Science](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.18679/) (2024)
- [DS-Agent: Automated Data Science by Empowering Large Language Models with Case-Based Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.17453/) (2024)
- [DSBench: How Far Are Data Science Agents from Becoming Data Science Experts?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.07703/) (2024)
- [Natural Language to Code Generation in Interactive Data Science Notebooks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09248/) (2022)
- [MLCopilot: Unleashing the Power of Large Language Models in Solving Machine Learning Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.14979/) (2023)
- [DA-Code: Agent Data Science Code Generation Benchmark for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.07331/) (2024)
- [DataSciBench: An LLM Agent Benchmark for Data Science](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13897/) (2025)
- [Spider2-V: How Far Are Multimodal Agents From Automating Data Science and Engineering Workflows?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.10956/) (2024)
- [DABstep: Data Agent Benchmark for Multi-step Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.23719/) (2025)
- [VisEval: A Benchmark for Data Visualization in the Era of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.00981/) (2024)
- [Benchmarking Data Science Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.17168/) (2024)
- [Exploring LLM Agents for Cleaning Tabular Machine Learning Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.06664/) (2025)
- [DSBC : Data Science task Benchmarking with Context engineering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.23336/) (2025)

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

- [A Better Spur Should Start From Each Objective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.08211/) (2026)
- [Toward Skill-Native LLMs: Skill Entropy for Benchmarking and Training Long-Horizon Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.05139/) (2026)
- [Debiasing as a Measurement Intervention: Calibrated Ties and Resolution Loss in LLM-as-a-Judge Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.12439/) (2026)
- [The Silent Failures in Agentic Data Science](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.14115/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The fast-growing demands in using Large Language Models (LLMs) to tackle complex multi-step data science tasks create an emergent need for accurate benchmarking. There are two major gaps in existing benchmarks: (i) the lack of standardized, process-aware evaluation that captures instruction adherence and process fidelity, and (ii) the scarcity of accurately labeled training data. To bridge these gaps, we introduce DARE-bench, a benchmark designed for machine learning modeling and data science instruction following. Unlike many existing benchmarks that rely on human- or model-based judges, all tasks in DARE-bench have verifiable ground truth, ensuring objective and reproducible evaluation. To cover a broad range of tasks and support agentic tools, DARE-bench consists of 6,300 Kaggle-derived tasks and provides both large-scale training data and evaluation sets. Extensive evaluations show that even highly capable models such as gpt-o4-mini struggle to achieve good performance, especially in machine learning modeling tasks. Using DARE-bench training tasks for fine-tuning can substantially improve model performance. For example, supervised fine-tuning boosts Qwen3-32B's accuracy by 1.83x and reinforcement learning boosts Qwen3-4B's accuracy by more than 8x. These significant improvements verify the importance of DARE-bench both as an accurate evaluation benchmark and critical training data.