# Encoding Explanatory Knowledge for Zero-shot Science Question Answering

Source: [Encoding Explanatory Knowledge for Zero-shot Science Question Answering](<https://www.sota2.com/research/paper/68fa6a021e209131cea255a1>)

Collection index: [llms.txt](<https://www.sota2.com/research/llms.txt>)

Data updated: 2025-10-25T23:13:37.567Z

Authors: Zili Zhou, Marco Valentino, Donal Landers, Andre Freitas

Published: 2021-05-12T15:42:50.000Z

## Abstract

This paper describes N-XKT (Neural encoding based on eXplanatory Knowledge Transfer), a novel method for the automatic transfer of explanatory knowledge through neural encoding mechanisms. We demonstrate that N-XKT is able to improve accuracy and generalization on science Question Answering (QA). Specifically, by leveraging facts from background explanatory knowledge corpora, the N-XKT model shows a clear improvement on zero-shot QA. Furthermore, we show that N-XKT can be fine-tuned on a target QA dataset, enabling faster convergence and more accurate results. A systematic analysis is conducted to quantitatively analyze the performance of the N-XKT model and the impact of different categories of knowledge on the zero-shot generalization task.

## Recorded benchmark results

A research result applies to its stated dataset, split, metric and evaluation configuration. Compare like-for-like settings, preserve the metric's unit and direction, and distinguish paper-reported results from independent reproduction. The best result recorded here is not a claim of exhaustive, current global coverage.

## Original sources and implementation

[Original paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.05737>)

[PDF](<https://arxiv.org/pdf/2105.05737.pdf>)