The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1998 Civics Assessment measured student knowledge, intellectual and participatory skills, and civic dispositions at the fourth grade level. This publication describes fourth graders' performance based on 30 questions from the fourth-grade assessment. Twenty-three of the thirty questions were multiple choice. The remaining seven were constructed response questions that required students to write their answers. The goal of the NAEP 1998 Civics Assessment was to measure how well U.S. youth are being prepared to meet their citizenship responsibilities. The framework for the 1998 Civics Assessment specifies three interrelated components which, taken together, reflect broad civic competency: knowledge, intellectual and participatory skills, and civic dispositions. The assessment was designed to evaluate students' ability to recall specific information, make inferences based on a written passage or graphical stimulus, or perform more analytical/evaluative tasks, such as distinguishing opinion from fact or defending a position. (Author/BT)