diff --git a/prompting/rewards/exact_match.py b/prompting/rewards/exact_match.py
index b97314193..2c82911c1 100644
--- a/prompting/rewards/exact_match.py
+++ b/prompting/rewards/exact_match.py
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
 MAX_VERIFY_TOKENS = 30
 NO_EOS_PENALTY = -0.1
 INCORRECT_PENALTY = -2
+NOT_ENOUGH_TOKENS_PENALTY_SCALE = 0.1
 MIN_SMOOTH_PENALTY_SCALE = 0.6
 MIN_TIME_PENALTY_SCALE = 0.3
 VERIFICATION_THRESH_CONTAINS = 0.96
@@ -67,6 +68,7 @@ async def reward(  # noqa: C901
         # Iterate over each miner response.
         for chunks, timings, chunk_dicts_raw, uid in zip(all_chunks, all_timings, all_chunk_dicts_raw, uids):
             penalty = INCORRECT_PENALTY
+            reward_scale = 1.0
             try:
                 # If no response is provided, apply full penalty.
                 if not chunks:
@@ -82,10 +84,8 @@ async def reward(  # noqa: C901
                     continue
 
                 if completion_length < MIN_VERIFY_TOKENS:
-                    # Not enough tokens to verify, set reward to 0.
-                    rewards.append(0)
-                    timing_verified.append([-1.0])
-                    continue
+                    # Not enough tokens to verify, still proceed to verification with scaled reward if checks will pass.
+                    reward_scale = NOT_ENOUGH_TOKENS_PENALTY_SCALE
 
                 eos_idx = completion_length
                 verify_indices = self.sample_verification_indices(completion_length)
@@ -142,8 +142,7 @@ async def reward(  # noqa: C901
                 # Min-max scale logits reward, e.g from [0.95; 1.0] to [0.0, 1.0].
                 score_sim_mean = self.rescale(score_sim_mean, min_value=VERIFICATION_THRESH_SIM)
                 score_contains_mean = self.rescale(score_contains_mean, min_value=VERIFICATION_THRESH_CONTAINS)
-                logits_score = (score_sim_mean + score_contains_mean) / 2
-                rewards.append(logits_score * smooth_reward)
+                rewards.append(score_sim_mean * score_contains_mean * smooth_reward * reward_scale)
             except BaseException as e:
                 logger.debug(f"Miner {uid} failed to pass logits check: {e}")
                 rewards.append(penalty)