Benchmark Almanac

MRCR (Michelangelo, original)

Gemini 2.5 Pro Mar 2025 94.5% leads since Mar 2025 Dropped

Models retrieve the n-th of several similar requests hidden in a long synthetic conversation. Original Michelangelo version before MRCR v2.

Google reports from 2024 and early 2025 use this version. Later Google cards use the 8-needle MRCR v2.

In the authors’ words

We introduce Michelangelo: a minimal, synthetic, and unleaked long-context reasoning evaluation for large language models which is also easy to automatically score. This evaluation is derived via a novel, unifying framework for evaluations over arbitrarily long contexts which measure the model's ability to do more than retrieve a single piece of information from its context. The central idea of the Latent Structure Queries framework (LSQ) is to construct tasks which require a model to “chisel away” the irrelevant information in the context, revealing a latent structure in the context. To verify a model's understanding of this latent structure, we query the model for details of the structure. Using LSQ, we produce three diagnostic long-context evaluations across code and natural-language domains intended to provide a stronger signal of long-context language model capabilities. We perform evaluations on several state-of-the-art models and demonstrate both that a) the proposed evaluations are high-signal and b) that there is significant room for improvement in synthesizing long-context information.

Abstract of Michelangelo: Long Context Evaluations Beyond Haystacks via Latent Structure Queries (arXiv:2409.12640, CC0)
Made by Google DeepMind Released Sep 2024 Finding facts in long inputs Last in a launch post Apr 2025 , dropped after it saturated Last model added Apr 2025
Level
Everyday Most adults, without training
Scored
Checked automatically A program checks the result against an answer key, unit tests or the expected final state.
Answers
Short answer A number, word or short string matched to a key.
9
Models scored in lab cards
6
Launch posts list it, from 1 lab
7
System cards report it, from 1 lab

Gemini 2.5 Pro leads with 94.5% among models released by Apr 2025

Best score per model as labs report them in their own cards. Labs pick their own settings, so these compare less cleanly than independent runs.

The newest model with a score here came out in Apr 2025, and nobody has reported a newer one. Among the 20 highest-ranked models on the capability index, these have no score yet:

  1. 1 Gemini 2.5 Pro Mar 2025 94.5%
  2. 2 Gemini 2.5 Flash Apr 2025 84.6%
  3. 3 Gemini 2.0 Pro 74.7%
  4. 4 Gemini 2.0 Flash Feb 2025 70.5%
  5. 5 Gemini 2.0 Flash Dec 2024 69.2%
  6. 6 Gemma 3 27B 59.3%
  7. 7 Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite 58%
  8. 8 Gemma 3 12B 49.8%
  9. 9 Gemma 3 4B 44.6%
#ModelScoreSettingDateSource
1 Gemini 2.5 Pro Mar 2025 94.5% Mar 2025 Model card
2 Gemini 2.5 Flash Apr 2025 84.6% Apr 2025 Model card
3 Gemini 2.0 Pro 74.7% Feb 2025 Model card
4 Gemini 2.0 Flash Feb 2025 70.5% Feb 2025 Model card
5 Gemini 2.0 Flash Dec 2024 69.2% Dec 2024 Model card
6 Gemma 3 27B 59.3% Mar 2025 Model card
7 Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite 58% Feb 2025 Model card
8 Gemma 3 12B 49.8% Mar 2025 Model card
9 Gemma 3 4B 44.6% Mar 2025 Model card

3 models have held number one since its release in Sep 2024

Lab claims count from the day the card came out, independent runs from the model’s release.

Google DeepMind
Lab claims Passed 85% in Mar 2025, by Gemini 2.5 Pro

The best score passed 85% in Mar 2025

All the scores we have, one dot each, so a model tested at several settings appears more than once.

Reported by the lab in its model card Best so far
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 2025 Near the ceiling (85%) Gemini 2.5 Pro Gemini 2.0 Pro Gemini 2.0 Flash 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 2025 Near the ceiling (85%) Gemini 2.5 Pro Gemini 2.0 Pro

Labs dropped it from launch posts once the best score passed 85%

Launch posts from every lab that has listed it, one tick per post. Tall colored ticks include it, and short gray ones leave it out.

Google DeepMind
DateLaunch postScoreAs the post writes it
17 Apr 2025 Gemini 2.5 Flash 84.6 MRCR 128k (average) (1M pointwise 66.3)
25 Mar 2025 Gemini 2.5 Pro 94.5 Best of MRCR, 128k (average) / MRCR, 1M (pointwise)
5 Feb 2025 Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite 58 MRCR (1M)
5 Feb 2025 Gemini 2.0 Flash 70.5 MRCR (1M)
5 Feb 2025 Gemini 2.0 Pro 74.7 MRCR (1M)
11 Dec 2024 Gemini 2.0 Flash 69.2 MRCR (1M)

7 system cards report it, from 1 lab

Besides launch posts, we read the system cards, model cards and technical reports labs publish with a release. They report far more, including safety and frontier-risk tests.

DateDocumentScoreAs the document writes itSection
29 Apr 2025 Gemini 2.5 Flash model card 84.6 MRCR (original), 128k (average), 1M (pointwise) 66.3 (Table, p.4) Capabilities
28 Apr 2025 Gemini 2.5 Pro model card 94.5 MRCR (original), 128k average; 1M pointwise = 83.1% (Table, p.4, column Gemini 2.5 Pro Experimental 03-25) Capabilities
15 Apr 2025 Gemini 2.0 Flash model card 70.5 MRCR (1M) (Table, p.3, column Gemini 2.0 Flash (GA)) Capabilities
10 Apr 2025 Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite model card 58 MRCR (1M) (Table, p.3) Capabilities
25 Mar 2025 Gemma 3 4B technical report 44.6 MRCR 128K, IT (Table 15). MRCR 32K IT: 49.8 Capabilities
25 Mar 2025 Gemma 3 27B technical report 59.3 MRCR 128K, IT (Table 15). MRCR 32K IT: 63.2 Capabilities
25 Mar 2025 Gemma 3 12B technical report 49.8 MRCR 128K, IT (Table 15). MRCR 32K IT: 53.7 Capabilities

Versions

More in Long context

All 66 in Long context
  • LongBench v2 In use 503 multiple-choice questions over 8K-2M-word contexts (QA, dialogue, code repos, structured data). Accuracy. Beam 1.0 66.9%
  • GraphWalks In use A graph is given as an edge list in long context. The model answers BFS or parent queries, scored by F1. Claude Fable 5 100%
  • OpenAI MRCR v2 In use Models read a long synthetic chat that hides 2, 4 or 8 identical writing requests and must reproduce the response to the i-th one. Scored by mean string match ratio per context bin. K-EXAONE 2.0 94.4%
  • CL-bench In use Model must learn new knowledge from a supplied long context (rules, procedures, data) and solve tasks. Strict LLM-verified rubrics. GPT-5.4 27.9%
  • AA-LCR 1.1 In use Models answer 100 questions that need reasoning across sets of real documents of about 100K tokens. An LLM equality checker with a fixed system prompt compares each answer with the key. Step 5 Preview 88.3%
  • LOCA-Bench In use Agentic tasks whose environment state is scaled to grow context length while task semantics stay fixed. Success rate versus context length. GPT-5.2 21.3%