ReEfBench: Quantifying the Reasoning Efficiency of LLMs

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2601.03550v1
• Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2026 03:33:07 GMT
• Title: ReEfBench: Quantifying the Reasoning Efficiency of LLMs
• Authors: Zhizhang Fu, Yuancheng Gu, Chenkai Hu, Hanmeng Liu, Yue Zhang,
• Abstract summary: We propose a novel neuro-symbolic framework for the non-intrusive, comprehensive process-centric evaluation of reasoning.<n>Our analysis reveals that extended token generation is not a prerequisite for deep reasoning.
• Score: 9.462320482705508
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: Test-time scaling has enabled Large Language Models (LLMs) to tackle complex reasoning, yet the limitations of current Chain-of-Thought (CoT) evaluation obscures whether performance gains stem from genuine reasoning or mere verbosity. To address this, (1) we propose a novel neuro-symbolic framework for the non-intrusive, comprehensive process-centric evaluation of reasoning. (2) Through this lens, we identify four distinct behavioral prototypes and diagnose the failure modes. (3) We examine the impact of inference mode, training strategy, and model scale. Our analysis reveals that extended token generation is not a prerequisite for deep reasoning. Furthermore, we reveal critical constraints: mixing long and short CoT data in training risks in premature saturation and collapse, while distillation into smaller models captures behavioral length but fails to replicate logical efficacy due to intrinsic capacity limits.

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