Equation 23 · Part 1 · Measuring What a RAG System Retrieves, Not Just What It Answers
Symbol P
What this part means
inflated by memorisation rather than by any generalisable capability, and every end-to-end score computed against that reference set overstates what the retrieval component is doing.
Its job in the formula
P is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.
Full expression→Symbol P→Article meaning
Where the article explains it
For RAG evaluation the consequence is sharper than for a plain language-model benchmark, because contamination corrupts exactly the term this article has been isolating: a contaminated model can produce a correct, fluent answer with the retriever disabled entirely, which means P( R) is inflated by memorisation rather than by any generalisable capability, and every end-to-end score computed against that reference set overstates what the retrieval component is doing.
The passage around this formula
…plain language-model benchmark, because contamination corrupts exactly the term this article has been isolating: a contaminated model can produce a correct, fluent answer with the retriever disabled entirely, which means P( R) is inflated by memorisation rather than by any generalisable capability, and every end-to-end score computed against that reference set overstates what the retrieval component is doing.
Learn the underlying idea
A function assigns an output to each allowed input. The expression f(x) means “apply f to x”.
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Sources cited in the surrounding passage
These citations provide research context; check each source for the exact claim it supports.