PhysicsMate: A Curriculum-Grounded Bengali Benchmark for Secondary Physics QA with Small-Model Adaptation
Abstract
PhysicsMate is a curriculum-grounded Bengali benchmark for secondary-school physics question answering, built from the NCTB Grade 9–10 syllabus. It contains 1,834 question-answer pairs grounded in a multi-relational knowledge graph with 1,760 nodes and 2,600 edges. Small-model adaptation across 0.6B, 1.7B, and 4B parameter scales improves closed-book accuracy by 5.5, 15.0, and 23.3 percentage points, respectively, supporting offline educational use in settings with limited connectivity and hardware.
Key Empirical Receipts & Quantitative Highlights
- Curriculum-grounded Bengali physics QA benchmark with 1,834 question-answer pairs and a 1,760-node knowledge graph.
- Small-model adaptation improves closed-book accuracy by 5.5, 15.0, and 23.3 percentage points at 0.6B, 1.7B, and 4B parameters.
- The 4B adapted model is quantized for offline use in resource-constrained settings.
Problem Context & Real-World Motivation
The work studies curriculum-aligned physics question answering in Bengali and the use of compact adapted models where compute and connectivity are limited.
Principal Research Contributions
Introduces a Bengali secondary-physics QA benchmark grounded in the NCTB Grade 9–10 curriculum.
Structures curriculum knowledge as a multi-relational graph to support small-model adaptation.
Evaluates adaptation at 0.6B, 1.7B, and 4B parameter scales, including an offline quantized model.
Practical Significance & South Asian AI Implications
Shows a path toward curriculum-grounded physics support that can run offline on resource-constrained hardware.
BibTeX Citation
@misc{jahin2026physicsmate,
title={PhysicsMate: A Curriculum-Grounded Bengali Benchmark for Secondary Physics QA with Small-Model Adaptation},
author={Jahin, Rashid Azraf and Sajid, Saadman and Reza, Khan Raiyan Ibne and Nimi, Sumaiya Tabassum},
year={2026},
eprint={2610.00664},
archivePrefix={arXiv}
}