Round #1036

19 May 2026, 10:31· math· Meta-Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct· r13-clean-hints
Complexity
band 0
ZP / UO / OBS
3 / 0 / 1
Journey weight
223
Lightshift ΔL
—

Prompt

A student writes: "-3 - (-7) = -10 because two negatives next to each other stay negative." Is the student correct? Show the correct working.

Zero-point index (what the engine surfaced)

ZPI-ZPI-0033 | 2026-05-19T10:31:31Z A student writes: "-3 - (-7) = -10 because two negatives next to each other stay negative." Is the student correct? Show the correct working. ZERO POINT — 3 entries (structural invariants) ● hsl(7.18, 100%, 50%) class [feature] ● hsl(0.00, 100%, 50%) public [feature] ● hsl(84.10, 100%, 50%) namespace [feature] UNOBSERVED — 0 entries (implied truths) OBSERVED — 1 entries (explicit in request) ◉ hsl(175.38, 100%, 27%) = [feature] COMPLEXITY │ 4 entries │ spread: 0° │ band: LOW

Baseline response (no ZPI)

No, the student is incorrect. The correct working is: -3 - (-7) When we have two negatives next to each other, they actually cancel each other out and become a positive. So, we can rewrite the expression as: -3 + 7 Now, let's evaluate the expression: -3 + 7 = 4 Therefore, the correct answer is 4, not -10. The student's statement "two negatives next to each other stay negative" is incorrect. The correct rule is that two negatives next to each other become a positive.

Enhanced response (with ZPI)

No, the student is incorrect. The correct calculation is: -3 - (-7) = -3 + 7 = 4. Two negatives next to each other actually become a positive, following the rule that two minus signs make a plus sign.

Grader chain

Each grader reads the same baseline + enhanced pair and casts an independent verdict. Disagreement is the framework's own signal — not noise to be averaged away.

V1samba/Meta-Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct
Better
V4qwen2.5-coder-3b-instruct
Same
V5cerebras/qwen-3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507
Same
V7qwen2.5-coder-7b-instruct
Same
V8openai/gpt-4.1
Same
V9anthropic/claude-opus-4-7
Worse
V12openai/gpt-4o
Same

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