In this article, the author reports that sophomores who take the Washington Assessment of Student Learning this week will be the first who must pass the state exam to graduate. The long-awaited testing has caused anxiety across the state, as hopes that Washington will enter a new era of educational accountability are balanced by fears of turmoil if large number of 10th graders are unable to pass the tests. The students, members of the class of 2008, will get more chances to meet the requirement. State law allows up to five attempts on each test section: (1) reading; (2) writing; and (3) mathematics. Students can pass them separately. A science exam is being pilot-tested this year and will be added to the graduation requirement for the class of 2010. Washington is one of the 24 states that require high school students to pass an exit exam or end-of-course exams to graduate. "The states have had a lot of difficulty holding to these [high-stakes testing] policies," said Jack Jennings, the president of the Center on Education Policy, a public education research and advocacy group in Washington, D.C., that has studied graduation-exam requirements.