{"paper":{"title":"IsoSci: A Benchmark of Isomorphic Cross-Domain Science Problems for Evaluating Reasoning versus Knowledge Retrieval in LLMs","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["cs.AI"],"primary_cat":"cs.CL","authors_text":"Erchin Serpedin, Hasan Kurban, Samir Abdaljalil","submitted_at":"2026-07-01T19:49:49Z","abstract_excerpt":"We introduce ISOSCI, a benchmark of isomorphic cross-domain science problem pairs that separates reasoning ability from domain knowledge retrieval in LLM evaluation. Each pair shares identical logical structure but requires different domain-specific knowledge, enabling controlled attribution of reasoning-mode gains. Across five model pairs spanning four model families, we find that 91.3% of reasoning-mode gains are knowledge-dependent rather than structure-invariant (63/69 gains; Wilson 95% CI [82.3%, 96.0%]), directly challenging the assumption that chain-of-thought reasoning improves short-h"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2607.01431","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2607.01431/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}