diff --git a/scripts/mccarthy-corpus/GATE-PREREG.md b/scripts/mccarthy-corpus/GATE-PREREG.md
index 371a9c8..a7b005c 100644
--- a/scripts/mccarthy-corpus/GATE-PREREG.md
+++ b/scripts/mccarthy-corpus/GATE-PREREG.md
@@ -420,3 +420,26 @@ arm is generated:**
 
 If no candidate clears all three, lv-mccarthy is **parked pending a retrain**, and that is the
 report — not a softer bar.
+
+### AMENDMENT 3a — noted 6 generations into ckpt300, before any of its rates exist
+
+ckpt300's first outputs are **far too SHORT** — 6, 25, 46, 59 words against a 90–140 ask, with
+keyword hits of 0/12 and 3/12. At epoch 0.65 the adapter may simply not have learned the length
+target yet.
+
+⚠ **That exposes a hole in AMENDMENT 3's bar, and the hole is mine.** `ran-on` is defined as
+`words > 140`, so **a chronically undershooting arm satisfies `ran-on ≤ 0.100` trivially while
+being useless.** It is the same class of error as the unsatisfiable criterion this amendment
+exists to correct, inverted: a criterion too easy rather than impossible.
+
+**The written bar is NOT being edited again.** Three rule-motions in one session is already too
+many, and a bar patched once per observation is not a bar. Instead:
+
+> **A candidate that clears AMENDMENT 3's ran-on term by being SHORT has cleared it vacuously
+> and will not be shipped.** The full in-band / on-beat / words-median / p90 table is reported
+> for every arm so the reader can see which kind of pass it is, and the judgment is stated in
+> the open rather than buried in a threshold.
+
+This is a judgment applied in the conservative direction, not a threshold moved. **Gate design
+for this corpus is evidently not settled — that is an operator call, and the complete five-arm
+ladder is being measured so it can be made once rather than iteratively.**