Summarizes 10 basic exam questions relating to distance, direction, time, and world interest that have confounded college freshmen entering a professor's geography classes over the past 15 years. Students bewildered by the pretest usually did not pass or even finish his course. Also, foreign students performed better than American students. (MLH)

Summarizes findings of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) on reading, mathematics, science, writing, high and low achievers, race, types of schools, and geographic regions and affirms the potential of American education to solve its own problems with government assistance at the federal level. (JBM)