RARE: Retrieval-Augmented Reasoning Enhancement for Large Language Models

Hieu Tran, Zonghai Yao, Zhichao Yang, Junda Wang, Yifan Zhang, Shuo Han, Feiyun Ouyang, Hong Yu


Abstract
This work introduces RARE (Retrieval-Augmented Reasoning Enhancement), a versatile extension to the mutual reasoning framework (rStar), aimed at enhancing reasoning accuracy and factual integrity across large language models (LLMs) for complex, knowledge-intensive tasks such as medical and commonsense reasoning. RARE incorporates two innovative actions within the Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) framework: (A6), which generates search queries based on the initial problem statement, performs information retrieval using those queries, and augments reasoning with the retrieved data to formulate the final answer; and (A7), which leverages information retrieval specifically for generated sub-questions and re-answers these sub-questions with the relevant contextual information. Additionally, a Retrieval-Augmented Factuality Scorer is proposed to replace the original discriminator, prioritizing reasoning paths that meet high standards of factuality. Experimental results with LLaMA 3.1 show that RARE enables open-source LLMs to achieve competitive performance with top closed-source models like GPT-4 and GPT-4o. This research establishes RARE as a scalable solution for improving LLMs in domains where logical coherence and factual integrity are critical.
Anthology ID:
2025.acl-long.896
Volume:
Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)
Month:
July
Year:
2025
Address:
Vienna, Austria
Editors:
Wanxiang Che, Joyce Nabende, Ekaterina Shutova, Mohammad Taher Pilehvar
Venue:
ACL
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Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
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Pages:
18305–18330
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URL:
https://preview.aclanthology.org/landing_page/2025.acl-long.896/
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Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Hieu Tran, Zonghai Yao, Zhichao Yang, Junda Wang, Yifan Zhang, Shuo Han, Feiyun Ouyang, and Hong Yu. 2025. RARE: Retrieval-Augmented Reasoning Enhancement for Large Language Models. In Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers), pages 18305–18330, Vienna, Austria. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
RARE: Retrieval-Augmented Reasoning Enhancement for Large Language Models (Tran et al., ACL 2025)
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PDF:
https://preview.aclanthology.org/landing_page/2025.acl-long.896.pdf