The high school class of 2005 earned the highest-ever marks on the math portion of the SAT, a modest change that continues the steady 25-year trend of improvement on the country’s most popular standardized college entrance exam.

Significant gaps between racial groups remain, however, and officials said they are troubled by the comparative lack of progress in scores on the test’s verbal section.

Last year’s seniors averaged 520 out of a possible 800 on the math portion, 2 points higher than the class of 2004. Average scores on the verbal section were unchanged at 508, according to results released yesterday by the College Board, the nonprofit that owns the SAT.

[New York’s high school students performed below the national average, according to the Associated Press. The statewide average for math was 511, a 1 point gain from last year. New York’s average verbal score was unchanged at 497.

New York had the greatest participation of test takers, said the AP. Ninety-two percent of seniors took the SAT this year; the national average participation rate was 49%.]

While this year’s increase was modest, “over the last 13 years the increase in math scores has been about 19 points, and that’s fairly significant,” said Wayne Camara, the group’s director of research, at a news conference yesterday.

The College Board also released its first glimpse of data on the new version of the SAT, which features a writing section with an essay, and which members of the class of 2006 began taking last spring. Those students appeared to find the new section the hardest, with average scores of 516, compared to 519 in critical reading (the new name for verbal) and 537 in math.

For the class of 2005, scores improved for all ethnic groups, though significant gaps remain. Composite scores for black students rose 7 points to 864, but that remains more than 200 points below the average composite score for white students.

Over the last decade, composite scores for Asian-American students have shown the greatest improvement, increasing 44 points to 1091. Disparities in the kinds of courses taken by different groups remain a major obstacle to narrowing races gaps, the College Board said. It pointed out, for instance, that 44% of Asian-American students take calculus in high school, compared to just 14% of African-Americans.

Mr. Camara said racial breakdowns for scores on the new writing test would not be released until next year, but he expects them to be narrower than on the other sections. Some critics have predicted the new writing section is biased against minority students and will exacerbate the gap.

Scores on the SAT were “recentered” in 1995, which significantly increased students’ average scores. The College Board then recalculated scores from previous years using the new system.

Officials said this year’s math scores are the highest ever on that scale. However, the board had to use estimates to calculate average scores before 1972.