A team is training a text-generation model where a single quality score is assigned only after a complete multi-sentence response is generated. For all intermediate steps (i.e., before the final word), a default score of 0 is used. The team notices the model struggles to maintain a consistent narrative thread throughout its responses. Which statement best analyzes the relationship between this scoring method and the model's behavior?

A language model is being trained using a reward model that provides a single quality score for a complete, generated response. If the model generates the four-token sequence ['The', 'cat', 'sat', '.'], which of the following reward lists best represents the standard sparse reward assignment for this process, where r_t is the reward at step t?

Evaluating a Sparse Reward Strategy