In 1993, under contract from the National Center for Education Statistics, the Educational Testing Service assessed the literacy proficiencies of a nationally representative sample of all adults, aged 16 and over, from nearly 27,000 homes. That assessment, the National Adult Literacy Survey, produced a profile of the English literacy skills of the adult population along three scales, each ranging from 0 to 500, for prose, documents, and quantitative material. This volume draws on results from the first official report on the survey issued in 1993. One in 5 adults performed at the lowest level of prose literacy, while 3 in 10, at Level 3, can match information in a text to the directive given to them. Only 1 in 33 were at the highest level, able to make high-level inferences based on text and to find information in dense text that contained distracting information. Results for document literacy and quantitative operations are similar. Three in 10 adults can solve problems with 2 or more numbers that must be found in printed material. Findings are presented in 28 graphs, and 15 example tasks illustrate the survey's problems. (SLD)