Mathematical equivalence lets an answer checker recognize expressions with different surface forms but the same value. The workflow first compares strings, then parses both expressions with SymPy and tests whether their difference simplifies to zero. section 3.6
The comparison pipeline handles:
- Implicit multiplication, such as 2y instead of 2 * y, through SymPy transformations. section 3.6
- Basic arithmetic simplification, such as converting 2 + 3 to 5. section 3.6
- Malformed, missing, or oversized expressions by returning an unusable parse result rather than failing the evaluation. section 3.6
Equivalent fractions
The checker treats 14/3 and 28/6 as equivalent, and also recognizes 0.5 and 1/2 as the same value while rejecting 14/3 versus 15/3. section 3.6
