The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is an information-gathering project that surveys the educational attainments of 9-year-olds, 13-year-olds, and l7-year-olds. The purpose of this report is to attempt to summarize performance across all learning areas for each age group separately. Results were selected to provide a useful and interesting overview of what students know and can do. Each chapter of the report contains information about one of the three age groups. The first part of each chapter, "Summaries of Ten Learning Areas," is devoted to a series of short descriptions of the findings for each subject area. The second section of each chapter highlights achievements attained by students. The lists describe the actual achievements of many students, some students, and few students. Readers must decide for themselves whether these actual achievements are adequate or not. The third section, "Patterns of Group Results," summarizes the results obtained for regions of the country, males and females, blacks and whites, different types of communities, and different levels of parental education. (RC) Primary type of information provided by report: Results (Overview).