arXiv:2609.39334v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Test-time scaling has recently emerged as a powerful approach for improving LLM reasoning by allocating additional computation during inference, subs...
By Jinwoo Jeong (Korea University), Woohyung Choi (Korea University), Myeongjae Jeon (POSTECH), Jeongseob Ahn (Korea University)
arXiv:2608. 08020v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Test-time compute scaling is a primary driver of performance in large reasoning models (LRMs), but extreme inefficiency bounds current approaches, shifting the critical question from \emph{how much} compute to spend, to \emph{where} to allocate it.
By Lijie Yang, Hongyin Luo, Tri Dao, Ravi Netravali
The paper introduces Planned Test-Time Scaling (PTTS), a method that replaces independent sampling of reasoning branches with a coordinated joint policy. PTTS uses a planner to generate distinct solution outlines for each branch and an executor to produce full solutions, thereby improving coverage of complementary reasoning modes. Two variants—PTTS‑ZS (zero‑shot) and PTTS‑RL (reinforcement‑learned)—demonstrate significant gains on five mathematical reasoning benchmarks, with PTTS‑RL achieving up to a 13.4‑point improvement in pass@64 over repeated sampling.
By Xueqing Wu, Langxing Bai, Hritik Bansal, Po-Nien Kung, Shuo Li, Hao Liu, Nanyun Peng, Kai-Wei Chang
The paper investigates how test‑time computation can enhance language models and at what cost, introducing the SELF‑POT benchmark to evaluate this across competition mathematics, competitive programming, and agentic workflows. SELF‑POT separates candidate coverage from final accuracy, tracks correctness transitions under revision, and measures protocol completion alongside task success. Using a unified budget rule, the study compares direct inference, parallel sampling, and self‑revision across five low‑cost reasoning models, revealing that selection rules and failure handling significantly influence gains and cost savings.
By Bangji Yang, Jingyuan Li, Jiajun Fan, Yi Evie Zhang, Ruihan Guo, Hongba Ma, Neil He, Chumeng Liang, Qinglong Zheng, Zhanghan Ni, Ge Liu
Scaling inference-time computation has emerged as a reliable method to improve the performance of large language models on complex reasoning and programming tasks. However, standard approaches such as independent sampling and sequential multi-turn refinement operate without token-level credit assignment, resulting in computational inefficiency, since valid reasoning prefixes are frequently discarded.
arXiv:2608. 05643v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Test-time scaling improves LLM reasoning by using additional inference compute, but wider sampling alone can suffer from diminishing returns: new rollouts often repeat existing answer patterns instead of adding useful reasoning diversity.
By Ahsan Bilal, Muhammad Ahmed Mohsin, Muhammad Umer, Lena Trigg, Ali Subhan, Muhammad Ali, Dean F. Hougen
arXiv:2607. 21453v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Scaling inference-time computation has emerged as a reliable method to improve the performance of large language models on complex reasoning and programming tasks.
By Rajiv Shailesh Chitale, Rahul Madhavan, Taneesh Gupta, Deepanway Ghosal, Aravindan Raghuveer
arXiv:2606. 06915v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Test-time compute (TTC) scaling has emerged as a powerful paradigm for improving large language model (LLM) reasoning by allocating additional compute during inference, e.
By Vladislav Smirnov (MBZUAI), Chieu Nguyen (MBZUAI), Sergey Senichev (Independent Researcher), Minh Ngoc Ta (MBZUAI), Ekaterina Fadeeva (ETH Z\"urich), Artem Vazhentsev (MBZUAI), Daria Galimzianova (MBZUAI), Nikolai Rozanov (MBZUAI, Imperial College London), Viktor Mazanov (Innopolis University), Jingwei Ni (ETH Z\"urich), Tianyi Wu (NUS), Igor Kiselev (Accenture), Mrinmaya Sachan (ETH Z\"urich), Iryna Gurevych (MBZUAI), Preslav Nakov (MBZUAI), Timothy Baldwin (MBZUAI), Artem Shelmanov (MBZUAI)
arXiv:2606. 29354v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Chain-of-Thought (CoT) improves large language models (LLMs) on difficult reasoning tasks, but it often incurs long natural-language rationales that are poorly aligned with efficient machine reasoning.
By Zhengqi Pei, Qingming Huang, Shuhui Wang
arXiv:2606. 04402v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Modern reasoning models can allocate different amounts of test-time computation, such as thinking tokens, model calls, or compute budget, to different tasks.
By Jingbo Wen, Liang He, Ziqi He
The paper proposes a unified framework for test‑time reasoning methods, framing them as recursion operators—GROW, PRUNE, and BRANCH—applied to an agent’s reasoning trace. Experiments across five benchmarks and three frontier models show that BRANCH, which samples and selects among multiple reasoning paths, consistently outperforms the other operators and a single‑pass chain‑of‑thought baseline, improving accuracy by an average of 5.98 percentage points. The study also highlights the importance of paired evaluation and careful handling of scoring‑pipeline failures, as these factors can significantly alter comparative outcomes.
By Shengxin Zhang, Xiaomin Wu, Xiyang Wu, Jing Xie
The paper demonstrates that the number of candidates generated during test-time scaling of large language models does not fully capture the system cost. By comparing different generation schedules (e.g., one batched call versus multiple serial calls) while keeping the total candidate count fixed, the authors show that serial calls consume significantly more GPU energy and latency. The study suggests that reporting candidate count alone is insufficient; evaluations should also include generation schedule and GPU-level metrics.
By Mobina Kashaniyan, Ali Jannesari