diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 2cb32c5f2..3fa2473a2 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -13,6 +13,11 @@
   with the store-selected embedding model instead of the global default. This
   keeps chunk boundaries aligned with the model that creates and verifies the
   stored vectors without initializing an unrelated provider.
+- Bench scoring no longer credits a result whose path merely ends with the
+  expected filename (`Vault Note Standards.md` for `Standards.md`), nor an
+  expected path longer than the result (`docs/api/README.md` for `README.md`).
+  `pathsMatch` now requires an exact normalized match or a suffix anchored at a
+  path separator (#943).
 
 ## [2.8.3] - 2026-08-16
 
diff --git a/src/bench/score.ts b/src/bench/score.ts
index 86eccea5c..aed5a9afc 100644
--- a/src/bench/score.ts
+++ b/src/bench/score.ts
@@ -21,14 +21,13 @@ export function normalizePath(p: string): string {
 
 /**
  * Check if two paths refer to the same file.
- * Handles different path formats by comparing normalized suffixes.
+ * Exact match after normalization, or the expected path as a whole
+ * path-segment suffix of the result (`dir/name`, never a mid-filename fragment).
  */
 export function pathsMatch(result: string, expected: string): boolean {
   const nr = normalizePath(result);
   const ne = normalizePath(expected);
-  if (nr === ne) return true;
-  if (nr.endsWith(ne) || ne.endsWith(nr)) return true;
-  return false;
+  return nr === ne || nr.endsWith("/" + ne);
 }
 
 type ScoreMetrics = {
diff --git a/test/bench-score.test.ts b/test/bench-score.test.ts
index a0fe5e584..e6c79e23b 100644
--- a/test/bench-score.test.ts
+++ b/test/bench-score.test.ts
@@ -34,12 +34,20 @@ describe("pathsMatch", () => {
     expect(pathsMatch("Docs/README.md", "docs/readme.md")).toBe(true);
   });
 
-  test("suffix match (result is longer)", () => {
+  test("suffix match anchored at a path separator (result is longer)", () => {
     expect(pathsMatch("/full/path/docs/readme.md", "docs/readme.md")).toBe(true);
   });
 
-  test("suffix match (expected is longer)", () => {
-    expect(pathsMatch("readme.md", "docs/readme.md")).toBe(true);
+  test("expected longer than result does not match", () => {
+    expect(pathsMatch("readme.md", "docs/readme.md")).toBe(false);
+  });
+
+  test("basename does not match a longer basename", () => {
+    expect(pathsMatch("qmd://ai-live/Memory/Procedural/Vault Note Standards.md", "Standards.md")).toBe(false);
+  });
+
+  test("suffix must be anchored at a path separator", () => {
+    expect(pathsMatch("docs/api/readme.md", "i/readme.md")).toBe(false);
   });
 
   test("qmd:// prefix handled", () => {
@@ -101,7 +109,7 @@ describe("scoreResults", () => {
 
   test("reports recall@1/3/5 and matched documents", () => {
     const result = scoreResults(
-      ["x.md", "qmd://concepts/a.md", "docs/b.md", "docs/c.md", "docs/d.md"],
+      ["x.md", "qmd://col/concepts/a.md", "docs/b.md", "docs/c.md", "docs/d.md"],
       ["concepts/a.md", "b.md", "missing.md"],
       3,
     );