This investigation was undertaken in order to establish the status of scientific literacy among three groups of secondary school students in four Brisbane, Australia high schools, and to reduce the apparent reticence of science teachers to evaluate students' achievement in the various dimensions of scientific literacy by demonstrating appropriate evaluation techniques. Assessment of students' attainment of scientific literacy, as defined by Showalter (1974), would require a battery of seven tests, each specifically developed to span one of the dimensions of scientific literacy. Baseline data presented here indicate that student achievement in science knowledge, problem solving, values underlying science, interrelationship of science and society, and interests in science, was low. While it is acknowledged that the low mean scores to some extent reflect the procedures adopted in constructing the test instruments, comparative data for year 10 (N=567) and year 12 (N=273) students show that differences in scores on the various test scales occur according to year, whether or not science was studied. (DS)