Pretraining by Predicting the Next Token · seed 1 · A4, ink-friendly. The answer key prints on its own page for grown-ups.

The text teaches itself

Computing · Machine Learning · ages 22-23
Name ______________________   Date ____________
  1. What advantage do neural networks hold over plain word counting?

    • They memorize exact sequences perfectly
    • They learn patterns that cover unseen sentences
    • They skip training data entirely
  2. Where does the supervision signal for next-word guessing come from?

    • The text itself, which shows what comes next
    • Human labels on every sentence
    • A teacher correcting each guess live
  3. Low held-out loss guarantees that the model's answers are true.

    Circle one:   True   False

  4. Where does the free-supervision advantage stop?

    • At user intent, which text patterns do not encode
    • At rare words, which need extra counting
    • At long books, which exceed memory
  5. A model trained only to guess next words handles new grammar well. Why?

    • Grammar rules were labeled by hand first
    • The test sentences sat inside the training set
    • Good compression of text keeps grammatical patterns
  6. Two models post the same low held-out loss, but one answers users far better. What best explains the split?

    • The worse model must have seen less text
    • Loss measures guessing skill, while user fit needs something extra
    • Loss values below a threshold stop meaning anything
  7. A critic says next-word training cannot yield any task ability at all. Which fact answers them?

    • One objective over enough text forces grammar, facts, and rough task sense along the way
    • Models memorize every training sentence word for word
    • Human labelers secretly grade each position
  8. A team claims their model follows instructions because pretraining loss is low. What is the flaw?

    • Loss is computed too slowly to matter
    • Pretraining never touches instruction-style text
    • Low loss rewards likely words, not obedience to intent
LightMySky · lightmysky.comW1-mt_D8b2phZJfp-s1

Answer key

For grown-ups. Fold this page away before handing over the rest.

The text teaches itself W1-mt_D8b2phZJfp-s1

  1. They learn patterns that cover unseen sentences · Patterns carry to new sentences; memorized counts do not.
  2. The text itself, which shows what comes next · Each position is labeled by its own continuation, so the signal is free.
  3. False · Loss scores guesses on fresh text, not truth.
  4. At user intent, which text patterns do not encode · Patterns of language are not the same as what anyone wanted.
  5. Good compression of text keeps grammatical patterns · Squeezing text for better guesses forces grammar along the way.
  6. Loss measures guessing skill, while user fit needs something extra · Equal guessing skill still allows unequal obedience and truthfulness.
  7. One objective over enough text forces grammar, facts, and rough task sense along the way · Compression for guessing drags task patterns in with it.
  8. Low loss rewards likely words, not obedience to intent · The appearance of following instructions breaks down where wants depart from patterns.
Worksheet · LightMySky