# Volta at SemEval-2021 Task 9: Statement Verification and Evidence Finding with Tables using TAPAS and Transfer Learning

Source: [Volta at SemEval-2021 Task 9: Statement Verification and Evidence Finding with Tables using TAPAS and Transfer Learning](<https://www.sota2.com/research/paper/68fa6a271e209131cea26651>)

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

Data updated: 2025-10-25T23:17:37.192Z

Authors: Devansh Gautam, Kshitij Gupta, Manish Shrivastava

Published: 2021-06-01T06:06:29.000Z

## Abstract

Tables are widely used in various kinds of documents to present information concisely. Understanding tables is a challenging problem that requires an understanding of language and table structure, along with numerical and logical reasoning. In this paper, we present our systems to solve Task 9 of SemEval-2021: Statement Verification and Evidence Finding with Tables (SEM-TAB-FACTS). The task consists of two subtasks: (A) Given a table and a statement, predicting whether the table supports the statement and (B) Predicting which cells in the table provide evidence for/against the statement. We fine-tune TAPAS (a model which extends BERT's architecture to capture tabular structure) for both the subtasks as it has shown state-of-the-art performance in various table understanding tasks. In subtask A, we evaluate how transfer learning and standardizing tables to have a single header row improves TAPAS' performance. In subtask B, we evaluate how different fine-tuning strategies can improve TAPAS' performance. Our systems achieve an F1 score of 67.34 in subtask A three-way classification, 72.89 in subtask A two-way classification, and 62.95 in subtask B.

## 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.

- [Table-based Fact Verification on SEM-TAB-FACTS (val)](<https://www.sota2.com/research/sota/table-based-fact-verification-on-sem-tab-facts-val.md>): Table-based Fact Verification; SEM-TAB-FACTS (val); Micro-F1: 74.35.

- [Table-based Fact Verification on SEM-TAB-FACTS (test)](<https://www.sota2.com/research/sota/table-based-fact-verification-on-sem-tab-facts-test.md>): Table-based Fact Verification; SEM-TAB-FACTS (test); Micro F1: 73.87.

## Original sources and implementation

[Original paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.00248>)

[PDF](<https://arxiv.org/pdf/2106.00248.pdf>)