Cherokee County high school seniors continued to take the SAT admissions exam with mixed success.

A year after a 64- point drop, Blacksburg High seniors saw a 46- point increase in their average SAT scores in 2009. Gaffney High average SAT scores decreased 58 points over the same period.

Blacksburg High SAT scores increased from 1,345 last year to 1,391 in 2009. Gaffney High students saw their SAT scores drop from 1,435 to 1,377.

This was the second year the College Board reported scores for the revamped SAT, which now consists of critical reading, math and writing sections. Each section is worth 800 points. A perfect score on the SAT is now 2,400.

Statewide, the average SAT score dropped six points to 1,445 in 2009. The national average dropped two points to 1,493.

The College Board, which tracks 10-year SAT trends, said South Carolina's 22-point improvement on the SAT remains the nation's best among states. Massachusetts was second with a 21-point improvement while North Carolina is third with a 20-point gain over the past 10 years.

In contrast to their lower 2009 SAT scores, South Carolina public schools continued their across-the-board improvement on Advanced Placement tests. An all-time high of 14,970 students scored high enough to earn college credit, an 11.4 percent increase over last year's 13,434.

"It's unclear why SAT scores declined and AP scores went up," said State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex. "And it's unclear why African-American students' scores declined on the SAT but improved on AP.

"As a state, our challenge is to do better on both access and achievement. We know that access is improving because more students are taking the ACT and SAT," Rex said. "But when a broader group of students takes the exams, scores typically go down. Higher numbers of test-takers being accompanied by higher scores rarely happens. The good news for South Carolina is that it's happening on ACT scores. It's happening on AP scores. But for some reason, it's not happening on SAT scores."