Topeka ? The relatively few Kansas high school students who took the national SAT college entrance exam scored a little better this year on average than last year, according to figures released Tuesday.

The average math score was 588 points on a 800-point scale, up from 585 last year, according to the College Board, the New York nonprofit group that owns the test. The verbal score rose to 585, from 584 last year.

Those scores were also significantly better than the national averages of 508 for verbal and 520 for math. The math score was 2 points higher than the class of 2004 – and a record high for the test – while the verbal score was unchanged.

In Kansas, only 9 percent of graduating high school seniors have taken the test each of the past 11 years. Nationally, the figure is 49 percent.

In contrast, this year 76 percent of Kansas’ high school seniors took the ACT test. The Kansas ACT score was 21.7, up from 21.6 in 2004 and better than the national average of 20.9 out of a possible score of 36.