• Nine-year-olds. The beginning skills and understandings associated with level 200 were demonstrated by 89 percent of students in 2004, higher than in any other assessment year. In 2004, forty-two percent performed the numerical operations and beginning problem solving associated with level 250, a higher percentage than in any other assessment year.
• Thirteen-year-olds. Eighty-three percent demonstrated the ability to perform numerical operations and beginning problem solving (level 250) in 2004, higher than in any previous assessment. Twenty-nine percent demonstrated the ability to perform moderately complex procedures and reasoning (level 300) in 2004, up from 23 percent in 1999 and up from 18 percent in 1978. 
• Seventeen-year-olds. In 2004, fifty-nine percent of students performed moderately complex procedures and reasoning (level 300), an increase of 7 percentage points from 1978.

                                                                       View the mathematics performance-level descriptions.