Beginning in the 1992-93 school year, the North Carolina State Board of Education authorized administration of North Carolina-developed end-of-grade tests aligned with the state's "Standard Course of Study." These state-normed tests were administered to more than 568,000 students in grades 3 through 8 in 1998-99. End-of-course tests were developed for high school to measure achievement on curricular goals and objectives with an emphasis on higher-order thinking skills to over 630,000 students in 1998-99. Grade 3 pretests were administered to more than 98,000 students early in the 1998-99 school year. A high school comprehensive test in reading and mathematics was also administered, for the first time, to students in grade 10. This document contains preliminary results for these tests. These results may be used to make grade-to-grade, subject-to-subject, and year-to-year comparisons. The "State Testing Results," when released, will be a comprehensive compendium of student performance on these tests. The preliminary results show areas of achievement gains by North Carolina students in some areas. Disparities in performance among ethnic subgroups were noted for the grade 3, end-of-grade, high school comprehensive, and end-of-course tests. The achievement test results of students with limited English proficiency are also outlined. (Contains 91 tables and 7 figures.) (SLD)