# On Predicting the Post-training Potential of Pre-trained LLMs

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.11978 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.11978/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 22 of its 47 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 May 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 22 of 22)

- [Training Verifiers to Solve Math Word Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.14168/) (2021)
- [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)
- [Scaling Laws for Neural Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.08361/) (2020)
- [Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.06261/) (2025)
- [Training a Helpful and Harmless Assistant with Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.05862/) (2022)
- [Gemma 3 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19786/) (2025)
- [Instruction-Following Evaluation for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.07911/) (2023)
- [OpenAI GPT-5 System Card](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.03267/) (2025)
- [DeepSeek-V3.2: Pushing the Frontier of Open Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.02556/) (2025)
- [Kimi K2: Open Agentic Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.20534/) (2025)
- [GLM-4.5: Agentic, Reasoning, and Coding (ARC) Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.06471/) (2025)
- [HealthBench: Evaluating Large Language Models Towards Improved Human Health](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.08775/) (2025)
- [Seed1.5-Thinking: Advancing Superb Reasoning Models with Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.13914/) (2025)
- [Checklists Are Better Than Reward Models For Aligning Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.18624/) (2025)
- [WritingBench: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Generative Writing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.05244/) (2025)
- [SuperGPQA: Scaling LLM Evaluation across 285 Graduate Disciplines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.14739/) (2025)
- [Breaking the Exploration Bottleneck: Rubric-Scaffolded Reinforcement Learning for General LLM Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.16949/) (2025)
- [AdvancedIF: Rubric-Based Benchmarking and Reinforcement Learning for Advancing LLM Instruction Following](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.10507/) (2025)
- [PRBench: Large-Scale Expert Rubrics for Evaluating High-Stakes Professional Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.11562/) (2025)
- [APTBench: Benchmarking Agentic Potential of Base LLMs During Pre-Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.24397/) (2025)
- [Can Pre-training Indicators Reliably Predict Fine-tuning Outcomes of LLMs?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.12491/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Before They Can Solve: Predicting Post-Training Coding-Agent Performance from Base Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.10478/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The performance of Large Language Models (LLMs) on downstream tasks is fundamentally constrained by the capabilities acquired during pre-training. However, traditional benchmarks like MMLU often fail to reflect a base model's plasticity in complex open-ended scenarios, leading to inefficient model selection. We address this by introducing a new task of predicting post-training potential - forecasting a base model's performance before post-training. We propose RuDE (Rubric-based Discriminative Evaluation), a unified framework that bypasses the generation gap of base models by leveraging response discrimination. Guided by our systematic 4C Taxonomy, RuDE constructs controlled contrastive pairs across diverse domains by fine-grained rubric violations. Extensive experiments demonstrate a correlation greater than 90% with post-training performance. Crucially, validation via Reinforcement Learning (RL) confirms that RuDE effectively identifies high-potential smaller models that outperform larger counterparts, offering a compute-efficient mechanism for foundation model development.