Six closed-model configurations grade at or below the human inter-grader floor of 2.61/35 on the CV exam, with the best reaching MAE 1.64¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · causalr2·q2·i2medium
Currency · newest study 2026 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 2 of 2 entries) · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2029: tool and model accuracy changes quickly
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? Across 570 dual-graded submissions the two human graders' totals agree to MAE 2.61/35 (95% CI [2.37, 2.85]; Pearson r=0.868), treated as the human-grader floor. → Habibullah 2026
q2 i2 Six full-cohort closed-model configurations meet or undercut the floor; in a paired third-grader test three are significantly better than a human grader (e.g. D01 d=−0.54 [−0.71,−0.36]). → Habibullah 2026 (2)
Evidence¶
Habibullah 2026¶
Habibullah, A., Alshoibi, Y., Alshiekh, M., Khan, S., & Khan, N. (2026). Where LLM graders succeed and break: Evidence from two computer-science exams. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.29333 doi:10.48550/arxiv.2609.29333
q2 · i? · causal · r2
Observational analysis of the CV exam's dual grading by 20 graders in 10 fixed pairs; the grader-average total is the ground truth. The floor "pools across pairs whose internal disagreement varies by 4.2×", so pair assignment is a source of variability.
"Across all 570 dual-graded submissions of the CV exam the two graders’ totals agree to MAE= 2.61/35 (95%bootstrap CI [2.37,2.85] ; Pearsonr= 0.868 )."
Habibullah 2026 (2)¶
Habibullah, A., Alshoibi, Y., Alshiekh, M., Khan, S., & Khan, N. (2026). Where LLM graders succeed and break: Evidence from two computer-science exams. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.29333. doi:10.48550/arxiv.2609.29333
q2 · i2 · causal · r2
Configuration-grid evaluation of closed models on the CV exam. Retested with the paired third-grader statistic, three configurations are better than a human grader — "D01 d=−0.54 [−0.71,−0.36]" — while Flash-Lite with thinking and both gpt-5.5 runs sit at parity.
"Six full-cohort configurations meet or undercut the human floor of 2.61 with CI upper bounds below it (Table 10, Appendix C): D01 (gemini-3-flash-preview, neutral,t= 0 )at MAE= 1.64 (bound 1.79);"
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- LLM grading performance relative to human graders is mixed: comparable in 12 reviewed cases, worse in 11, with the strongest alignment on short, straightforward tasks — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
- A short strict-grader preamble knocks 14 of 17 open-weights LLM graders out of the graded band on a computer-vision exam, with three stopping grading outright — related
- The strict-persona vulnerability replicates on an independent machine-learning exam, but its direction is exam-specific: seven of 17 models improve because the persona cancels their over-marking — related
- Grading skill transfers across exams: an adapter fine-tuned on one exam improves grading on the unseen other, though transfer stops short of in-domain performance — related
- One LoRA adapter fine-tuned on the two exams' pooled ~3,900 dual-graded examples brings five small open models to parity or better with a human grader and makes them insensitive to harsh personas — related
- Human Graders of Open-Ended Work Agree With Each Other Less Than Treating One Grade as Ground Truth Implies — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
closed-llm-graders-below-human-floor |
title |
Six closed-model configurations grade at or below the human inter-grader floor of 2.61/35 on the CV exam, with the best reaching MAE 1.64 |
description |
Six closed-model configurations grade at or below the human inter-grader floor of 2.61/35 on the CV exam, with the best reaching MAE 1.64 |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2026 |
source_checked |
2026-10-20 |
recheck_by |
2029 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-11 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
2 — habibullah-2026, habibullah-2026-2 |
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