Kansas City, Mo. ? Kansas students have scored well above the national average on the SAT college entrance exam and beat their scores from last year.

The College Board that overseas the test released this year’s totals to the public Monday.

The average score for Kansas high school students in critical reading was 590, compared with 501 nationally. In math, Kansas had an average score of 595, compared with 516 nationally. The average writing scores in Kansas was 567, compared with 492 nationally.

High scores are more common in states in which a small percentage of students take the test. In Kansas, the test was taken by 1,822 members of the class of 2010 through March. That’s down from 2,300 students the previous year.

Kansas students more frequently take the ACT college entrance exam.