How Far Can LLMs Improve from Experience? Measuring Test-Time Learning Ability in LLMs with Human Comparison

As evaluation designs of large language models may shape our trajectory toward artificial general intelligence, comprehensive and forward-looking assessment is essential. Existing benchmarks primarily assess static knowledge, while intelligence also entails the ability to rapidly learn from experience. To this end, we advocate for the evaluation of Test-time Learning, the capacity to improve performance in experience-based, reasoning-intensive tasks during test time. In this work, we propose semantic games as effective testbeds for evaluating test-time learning, due to their resistance to saturation and inherent demand for strategic reasoning. We introduce an objective evaluation framework that compares model performance under both limited and cumulative experience settings, and contains four forms of experience representation. To provide a comparative baseline, we recruit eight human participants to complete the same task. Results show that LLMs exhibit measurable test-time learning capabilities; however, their improvements are less stable under cumulative experience and progress more slowly than those observed in humans. These findings underscore the potential of LLMs as general-purpose learning machines, while also revealing a substantial intellectual gap between models and humans, irrespective of how well LLMs perform on static benchmarks. Code and data are available 1 . "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." tions. Claude Test-time Policy from Experience 1. Core Question Structure -Always start with "Is it a man-made object?" -Follow with major category splits like: * Electronic vs. non-electronic * Indoor vs. outdoor use * Portable vs. stationary -Use clear binary choices with "rather than" comparisons to avoid invalid responses 2. Category Hierarchy (in order) A. Man-made vs. Natural B. If man-made: -Electronic/Electrical vs. Non-electronic -Indoor vs. Outdoor use -Major categories: * Electronics/Devices * Furniture * Clothing/Accessories * Tools/Equipment * Sports/Recreation * Kitchen/Household items