This brochure is part of NAEPFACTS, a new series that briefly summarizes findings from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Course-taking is generally a powerful indicator of mathematics achievement. This occurs partially because students who are more proficient tend to take more mathematics classes and, at the eighth grade, the better students are tracked into more advanced classes. The 1992 NAEP results linking proficiency to course work confirm this pattern, with eighth graders enrolled in pre-algebra and algebra courses having higher proficiency scores than students taking eighth-grade mathematics. Contains two tables for 1992: (1) National average proficiency of public and private school eighth-grade students by mathematics course-taking, and by race and gender and (2) Average proficiency of eighth-grade public school students by mathematics course-taking, and by state. (MKR)