CCARF Practice Question

Paper 5 · Question 11

D5 Context Management & Reliability · Paper 5

[Scenario: Multi-agent Research System] Production monitoring shows inconsistent synthesis quality. When aggregated results are ~75K tokens, the synthesis agent reliably cites information from the first 15K tokens (web-search headlines/snippets) and the last 10K tokens (document analysis conclusions), but often misses critical findings in the middle 50K tokens—even when they directly answer the research question. How should you restructure the aggregated input?

• A.Summarize all subagent outputs to under 20K tokens before aggregation to keep content within the model’s reliable processing range.
• B.Stream subagent results to the synthesis agent incrementally, processing web-search results first to completion, then adding document analysis results.
• C.Place a key-findings summary at the start of the aggregated input and organize detailed results with explicit section headings for easier navigation.
• D.Implement rotation that alternates which subagent’s results appear first across research tasks to ensure both sources get equal top positioning over time.

Show answer & explanations

Correct answer: C

A: Compressing everything under 20K can drop the mid-input findings this failure is about. The problem is position and structure, not only length.

B: Finishing one source before the next still buries the second source, and it never puts a findings summary at the front.

C: Putting a key-findings summary at the start leverages primacy effects so critical information sits in the most reliably processed position. Adding explicit section headings throughout helps the model navigate and attend to mid-input content, directly mitigating the “lost in the middle” phenomenon.

D: Rotating which source leads on later tasks does nothing for the middle of this input.

Related Context Management & Reliability questions

More: Paper 5 · All practice questions