Last week, College Board officials announced that the average SAT mathematics score this year reached its highest level in 30 years. They attributed this improvement to the increasing number of students enrolling in higher-level courses. While math scores increased by 3 points to 515, verbal scores remained at 505 for the fifth year in a row. The maximum score for each section of the test is 800.

Recent national data revealed that a record number of high school students took both the SAT and ACT, the two major college entrance exams, this year. Additionally, more students than ever before are opting for rigorous courses such as calculus and physics.

The SAT and ACT play a crucial role in college admissions, placement, and scholarship decisions. The SAT assesses students’ math and verbal reasoning skills and is administered by the College Board on a scale of 400 to 1600 for the combined sections. On the other hand, the ACT, provided by ACT Inc. based in Iowa City, measures math, verbal, and science reasoning on a 36-point scale.

Students who have taken pre-calculus, calculus, or physics scored 33 to 96 points higher than the average combined SAT score.

The percentage of SAT-takers enrolled in higher-level classes has increased in the class of 2000. In this class, 24 percent had taken calculus and 49 percent had studied physics, compared to 19 percent and 44 percent respectively in 1990. Moreover, a record high of 88 percent of SAT-takers this year reported having studied at least three years of science. The stagnant verbal scores may be attributed to the fact that a larger number of SAT-takers are non-native English speakers. Additionally, more than a third of this year’s SAT-takers were first-generation college attendees, over half were women, and 34 percent were non-Hispanic minorities.

Despite the increase in rigorous courses, there remains a significant achievement gap between white students and minority students on the SAT. White students achieved an average combined score of 1158, compared to 860 for African-American students and 928 for Hispanic students. President of the College Board, Gaston Caperton, noted that these score disparities may reflect the disparities in the quality of education received in schools. Minority students are more likely to attend underprivileged schools with less qualified teachers and limited access to advanced courses like Advanced Placement (AP). The College Board aims to reduce this gap by ensuring that all high schools offer AP classes.

Since 1990, the gap between white and black students’ scores has slightly increased on both sections of the test. Asian-American students achieved the highest average math score this year with 565. White students achieved the highest average verbal score with 528. While men still have a higher average combined score than women (1040 for men compared to 1002 for women), the gender gap is closing in both math and verbal scores. Since the 1990s, women’s verbal scores on the SAT have increased by 8 points, while men have only gained 2 points. In terms of math scores, the gap between genders has narrowed by 5 points since the 1980s.

Robert Schaeffer, the public education director of FairTest, a watchdog group in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a longtime critic of the SAT, argues that the SAT scores fail to address the real educational problems in the country and rather highlight the flaws of the exam. Schaeffer points out that although men outperform women on the SAT, women earn higher grades in college, suggesting that the biases of the test have an impact on the results.

The College Board emphasizes that the SAT undergoes a thorough evaluation process to ensure fairness before it is administered. Gretchen Rigol, the board’s vice president of higher education services, affirms that it is the most highly researched test in the world.

On the ACT, there have been no significant changes, and the gender gap is not as prominent as on the SAT.

The percentage of students who took the ACT and identified themselves as being educated at home, although not significant, witnessed a notable 41% surge compared to the previous year. Moreover, these students achieved marginally higher scores than the average national performance.