Curry said that as he has gone through the data for this year's freshman profile, he hats found that African American students who do well on the AP tests tend to be either in the urban magnets or in predominantly White, suburban school systems where there are between five and twenty African American students who take the courses.

"That's where achievement seems to be centered" Curry said.

For example, he said, at Quince Orchard High School in suburban Montgomery County, Maryland, 82 percent of the African American students who took AP exams received a three or better (on a scale where five is the highest possible score). This contrasts with a national average of 65 percent.

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RELATED ARTICLE: College Board Develops New SATII Biology

NEW YORK -- Because of changes in high school biology curricula and the emphasis on applied reasoning skills, the College Board has developed a new Advanced Placement test -- now called SAT II -- in biology.

"The new exam responds to the continually expanding biology curriculum in American high schools -- particularly the dual emphasis on ecological and molecular approaches." said Donald M. Stewart, president of the College Board. "Although we have offered a biology exam for several years, the new test reflects shifts in the teaching of biology, with greater emphasis on fundamental concepts rather than just collections of facts."

The new exam, SAT II: Biology E/M, allows students to choose an ecological emphasis or a molecular emphasis in the same test, giving them the opportunity to take the test for which they feel better prepared. The test, which took 18 months of research and development contains eighty questions -- sixty of which are common to both forms of the test, and twenty that emphasize either ecological or molecular biology.

"This new test will put greater focus on scientific reasoning and less on memorization of facts," said J. Jose Bonner, chair of the test's development committee. "The questions will allow students to analyze and interpret data from hypothetical experiments, and they represent a whole new effort to measure how students will apply the subject matter to concrete situations."