Curricular analyses, written by experienced teachers and experts, of the 1978 Illinois Inventory of Educational Progress (IIEP) results, and teacher expectations regarding mathematics are presented. A random sample of 7,200 Illinois students within 360 schools (grades 4, 8, 11) were tested; results reflected their educational performance on the following topics: problem solving; applying mathematics to everyday situations; alertness to the reasonableness of results; estimation and approximation; computational skills; geometry; measurement; reading, interpreting, and constructing tables, charts, and graphs; and using mathematics to predict. General conclusions emerging from the curricular analyses included: (1) students had good understanding of the basic properties of numbers and scored high in addition and multiplication, but scored low in subtraction and division; (2) fractions were well taught initially, but not retained well; (3) student success depended on how relevant items were in their daily lives; (4) scores in basic metric units improved considerably from 1976 to 1978. Mathematics teachers in sampled schools at all grade levels consistently overestimated actual student performance, their expectations becoming more discrepant on objectives involving computation, understanding, and problem solving. (RL)