This collection of 18 papers (selected from a total of 57 presented at a conference of the International Association for Educational Assessment) represents efforts by examining bodies and institutes to: improve the examination system and testing techniques; develop reliable instruments; and establish standards for public examinations. The papers are: "Public Examinations, an Introduction" (A. J. M. Luijten); (2) "Social and Educational Imperatives for Changing Examinations" (P. J. Black); (3) "The Estimation of Bias in Matriculation Examination Scores and a Proposal for Correction" (S. Cahan); (4) "Recording Public Examination Performance--Usefulness, Accuracy, Ownership" (J. S. Cook); (5) "Divergence of Interests: Problems of Implementing Reforms in an Established Public Examination System" (R. K. Crocker); (6) "Attributes and Applications of a Pro-Active Assessment System" (R. L. Ferguson); (7) "Social Justice, Public Interest and the SAT" (C. Fincher); (8) "Issues in Assessment of Non-Objective and Objective Examination Tasks" (J. Izard); (9) "Determining Equivalence among European Educational Qualifications" (S. Johnson); (10) "Examinations in Europe: Three Major Streams" (H. P. Kreeft); (11) "The Politics of Assessment" (D. L. Ongom); (12) "Why Assess? Evaluating the Assessment of the English National Curriculum" (C. G. Robinson); (13) "Subject Pair Comparison Studies in an International Context" (J. J. Thompson and others); (14) "The Use of Item Response Theory in the Dutch National Assessment Programme" (N. D. Verhelst and T. J. H. M. Eggen); (15)"The Rationale of a School-Based Centralized Examination System" (W. H. Wijnen); (16) "Measuring Educational Progress with a Longitudinal Testing System" (T. L. Willoughby and A. R. Bixby); (17) "The Wessex Project: A Modular Development in English Post-Compulsory Education" (J. Wilmut and R. G. Rainbow); and (18) "Experiments on General High School Completion Tests in China" (X. Yang). (SLD)