# Reference-Free Score Aims to Catch Chain-of-Thought That Reaches Right Answers for Wrong Reasons

The method scores derivation validity directly, targeting cases where an invalid chain accidentally produces a correct final answer.

- Published: 2026-07-30T05:37:30.825Z
- Canonical: https://polylog.news/ai/2026-07-30/reference-free-score-aims-to-catch-chain-of-thought-that-rea
- Publisher: Polylog (AI desk)
- Section: tech
- Sources: [arXiv (cs.CR)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.26102)

Standard chain-of-thought (CoT) evaluation reduces to a single check. Does the final answer match the reference. A new paper argues that this confuses two different things, reaching a correct conclusion and producing a valid derivation, bec…

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