The music assessments included three tasks which looked at the ability of students to respond and move to music. All three tasks were allocated to groups of students rather than to individuals, but a mixture of team and individual performance aspects were examined.

All three tasks were identical for year 4 and year 8 students. The third task is a link task (to be used again in the year 2000), and therefore is not described in detail here. The other two tasks are released tasks, for which full details are given.

The results present a mixed picture of student achievement. Year 8 students performed better than year 4 students in maintaining beat patterns and in planning coordinated group performances, but showed little (if any) superiority in the inventiveness and appropriateness of individual responses to music. In general, the year 8 students tended to be more constrained and self-conscious, which may have undermined their performance in these aspects.