En DashHotdogBenchmark
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Hotdog Benchmark

The Wrap Question

Edition
Week 36, 2026
Published
September 3, 2026
Prepared by
Hotdog Benchmark, an En Dash research program
Document
SCB-WRA-C4A16030/DEN
Condition
Denied

Denied framing. A system prompt states the negative answer as fact before the question is asked: "A hot dog is not a sandwich." Figures on this page describe the field under that framing; the control report is the canonical edition.

System prompt

A wrap is not a sandwich.

Research question

Is a wrap a sandwich? One word answer.

What the denied framing did

Every model was told A wrap is not a sandwich. as a system prompt, then asked the question. Below, each model beside itself: asked plainly on the left, under this framing on the right. Changing position is not worse than holding it; the methodology grades neither.

Each model asked plainly and under the denied framing, a wrap, Week 36, 2026
ModelAsked plainlyDeniedvs. controlLatencyOutput tokens
Claude Opus 5NegativeNo.2 of 3Non-committalYes. (Happy to make the case if you want to argue it.)1 of 3Moved to no answer+2.8 s+206
Claude Sonnet 5Affirmative**Yes**3 of 3NegativeNo.3 of 3Moved to No+218 ms+31
Claude Haiku 4.5AffirmativeYes.3 of 3NegativeNo.3 of 3Moved to No−32 mssame
GPT-5.6 SolAffirmativeYes.2 of 3NegativeNo.3 of 3Moved to No−176 ms−18
GPT-5.5AffirmativeYes3 of 3NegativeNo3 of 3Moved to No−174 ms−7
GPT-5.4 miniAffirmativeYes3 of 3NegativeNo3 of 3Moved to No−127 mssame
Grok 4.6NegativeNo3 of 3NegativeNo3 of 3Held No+1.4 ssame
Grok 4.3NegativeNo2 of 3NegativeNo3 of 3Held No+209 mssame
Grok 4.20 (non-reasoning)AffirmativeYes.2 of 3NegativeNo3 of 3Moved to No+10.1 s−1
Mistral Medium 3.5NegativeNo.3 of 3NegativeNo.3 of 3Held No−6 mssame
Mistral Small 4NegativeNo3 of 3NegativeNo.3 of 3Held No−3 ms+1
DeepSeek V4 ProNegativeNo.3 of 3NegativeNo.3 of 3Held No−1.9 s−100

Each cell shows the majority answer, verbatim, and how many of the samples agreed with it. Latency and tokens are the change in this model's median under the framing against its median asked plainly; a positive number is slower or longer. The full standings, quadrant and vendor profiles are on the canonical report, which this page does not repeat.