⚖️ Judge verdict
The AI Cold War's Newest Weapon: Stealing the Teacher's Answer Key · Judge: anthropic:claude-opus-4-8 · 2026-09-06T13:48:57
· ✅ saved (0771db) · 3 models
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🏆 Quality winner: openrouter:deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro
DeepSeek delivers the most faithful and deeply explained account, an analogy (Tu-4 reverse-engineered from B-29) that precisely mirrors the distillation mechanism, and a complete, fair 10-question quiz where every answer is grounded in its rewritten passage. Its glossary is the most thorough and its reading passage is fully complete and polished, whereas Haiku's passage is truncated and includes a vocab item ('surreptitious') not present in its rewrite, and ERNIE offers fewer questions with a shakier vocab item.
💰 Best value: openrouter:deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro
— quality 9/10 at 0.62¢ → value 8.7/10
Value = 0.7·quality + 0.3·cheapness. Quality stays dominant, so a cheap-but-weak output can't win on price alone.
Quality ranking
| # | Model | Facts | Analogy | Age-fit | Clarity | Quiz | Glossary | Passage | Overall | Cost | Value | Notes |
|---|
| 🥇 |
openrouter:deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro
view ↗ |
9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
9 |
0.62¢ |
8.7 |
Excellent depth and accuracy; the Tu-4/B-29 Cold War analogy shares the same reverse-engineering mechanism. Ten well-constructed SAT-style questions including evidence-pairing, all answerable from the passage. Rich glossary and a polished, original reading passage. Best overall. |
| 🥈 |
anthropic:claude-haiku-4-5-20251001
view ↗ |
8 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 9 | 8 |
8 |
2.57¢ |
6.8 |
Strong, engaging entry with good analogies (doping scandal, arms race) and a full 10-question quiz with evidence pairing. Q4 asks about 'surreptitious' which appears in the source but not the rewritten passage, slightly unfair. Reading passage appears truncated at the end. Otherwise very good. |
| 🥉 |
openrouter:baidu/ernie-4.5-vl-424b-a47b
view ↗ |
8 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 8 |
7 |
0.43¢ |
7.9 |
Solid, accurate coverage with good analogies (recipe, generic drug). Only 3 quiz questions and the vocab question for 'distil' is arguably weak (both C and D defensible). Glossary is precise and concise. Passage is engaging and faithful. |
Scores 0–10 · 🟩 ≥8 · 🟨 4–7 · 🟥 <4 · sorted by Overall. Hover a column header for its full rubric name.
💰 Cost-adjusted ranking (value for money)
| # | Model | Quality | Cost | Value |
|---|
| 🥇 |
openrouter:deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro |
9 |
0.62¢ |
8.7 |
| 🥈 |
openrouter:baidu/ernie-4.5-vl-424b-a47b |
7 |
0.43¢ |
7.9 |
| 🥉 |
anthropic:claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 |
8 |
2.57¢ |
6.8 |
🪙 Best under 3¢ (cost < $0.03), ranked by quality
| # | Model | Quality | Cost | Value |
|---|
| 1 |
openrouter:deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro |
9 |
0.62¢ |
8.7 |
| 2 |
anthropic:claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 |
8 |
2.57¢ |
6.8 |
| 3 |
openrouter:baidu/ernie-4.5-vl-424b-a47b |
7 |
0.43¢ |
7.9 |
Strong quality without paying flagship prices — the cheap-and-good picks.