ATLANTA --- It's no surprise how Georgia students performed on state exams this year.

The state has been warning parents for weeks about failing scores on sixth- and seventh-grade social studies and eighth-grade math tests. The official Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests scores released Tuesday confirmed that 38 percent of eighth-graders failed the math test, which represents nearly 50,000 pupils.

The data show that pupils performed poorly in subjects where there was a harder curriculum and tougher test this year. But scores did improve in many areas where pupils had taken two or more years of the new curriculum.

"For a lot of parents, they didn't have that success story this year," state Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox said Tuesday. "But if they look at other areas of student performance, they'll see their child is doing well."

Pupils at all grade levels performed better on state reading tests compared to last year.

For example, 92 percent of sixth-graders passed the reading test, up from 89 percent last year. Eighth-graders passing the reading test rose from 88 percent last year to 91 percent this year.

Ms. Cox attributed the increased performance to the state's tougher reading curriculum, which has been in place three years.

Pupils at most grade levels saw improvement in English language arts, science and social studies tests. Those subjects are not used by the state to promote pupils.

Seventy-one percent of fifth-graders passed the science test, up from 67 percent last year. For fourth-grade social studies, 90 percent of pupils passed the test, compared to 88 percent last year.

Despite those improvements, some parents are still angry that the state had to throw out sixth- and seventh-grade social studies scores after realizing the test didn't match what pupils were taught.

The state estimates that 70 percent to 80 percent of sixth- and seventh-graders failed the social studies test this year.

"The social studies test was unreasonable," said Kim Smith, whose daughter is a rising eighth-grader at Dodgen Middle School in Marietta. "It was so off-base with what she had been taught."

Officials have said the math test is valid. They say they anticipated the drop in eighth-grade scores because the curriculum was new and the test tougher. Ms. Cox said she expects the scores to rise next year with the help of curriculum specialists, who will train educators on strategies for teaching math.