The purpose of this report is to inform users and other interested parties about the development, content and technical characteristics of the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) assessments. It provides information for the 2003 "SOL" cycle that comprises the fall 2003 and spring 2004 administrations. The report is divided into three parts. The first part of the report, Sections 1 through 3, presents a historical overview of the Virginia "SOL" assessment program. Section 1 is a synopsis of the "SOL" assessment program. Section 2 has information about the development of the assessment blueprints, its initial development and item and forms review. Section 2 also contains information about how the items for the first "SOL" administration were field tested, as well as a description of the initial standard setting. Section 3 describes the calibration, scaling and equating procedures used in the program. The second part of the report, Section 4, explains the changes made to the "SOL" assessments during the 2003-2004 administration cycle. The third part of the report, Sections 5 through 7, is a statistical summary of the 2003 administration cycle. Section 5 outlines the analyses that were performed. The results for the fall 2003 and spring 2004 administrations are included in Sections 6 and 7. Appended are: (1) Example of Writing Scoring Rubric; (2) Fall 2003 & Spring 2004 Scale Score Histograms; (3) Fall 2003 & Spring 2004 Item Analyses; (4) Committee Member Selection for Summer 2003; and (5) Additional Reliability Analyses. (Contains 86 tables and 4 figures.)