The problem in the study was to determine the makeup of typing tasks assigned to beginning office workers and to see how closely the practice problems in high school typing textbooks conformed to the duties that beginning office workers actually perform. Using sequential sampling procedures, copies of 531 items typed by 100 beginning office workers were compared with 943 production problems in two high school typing textbooks. Industry tasks contained more rough draft typing, self-composition problems, correspondence requiring judgment placement and formating, and more extensive use of carbon paper than textbook typing assignments. Industry letters were also shorter and contained more subject and attention lines. Errors were nearly always corrected, most often by use of correction paper. The readability levels of the textbook problems were significantly different from each other and from industry typing. (Author)