The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has been conducting the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) since 1969. In addition to conducting regular assessments in reading, mathematics, science, and writing, the NAEP conducts assessments in other subjects, such as geography, U.S. history, civics, and the arts. Each national assessment generates thousands of student responses that must be scored individually. The NCES and its contractors have developed a large number of special techniques to ensure that the constructed response questions of the NAEP assessments can be scored consistently. Scorers are selected carefully and then trained to score short and extended constructed response questions consistently. They are given opportunities to practice until they are thoroughly familiar with the scoring guides. For scoring purposes, student answers are converted into computer images so that all answers for a given question are grouped and scored at the same time. Scorers are monitored by supervisors and a minimum standard agreement rate is set for each question. Decisions by scorers working on current assessments are compared with decisions by past scorers when appropriate. Regular second scoring of answers to every question ensures that consistency is maintained throughout the scoring process. A similar procedure is used for the NAEP long-term trend assessments, which are used to track student performance over time. (SLD)