LITTLE ROCK—Arkansas education officials said Friday that scores on state standardized tests show a narrowing of the achievement gap between white students and minorities for the second year in a row.

The scores mark the first year the state used a new “augmented” exam that combined traditional benchmark exams with the Iowa Test in an attempt to cut down the amount of time spent preparing for the separate tests. The new test allowed students to take one exam instead of two.

Benchmark results fall into four categories: below basic, basic, proficient and advanced.

Overall, benchmark exam scores generally improved over the past year. The percentage of third-graders scoring proficient or advanced on math scores increased from 74 percent last year to 79 percent this year. In third-grade literacy, the percentage increased from 59 percent last year to 64 percent this year.

The greatest increase was in fourth-graders scoring proficient or advanced in math, which increased from 65 percent last year to 74 percent this year.

The only category that did not see an increase was seventh grade literacy, which remained constant at 57 percent.

“The exciting point to note about this year’s scores is that at all grade levels in both literacy and math, we have more than half of our students scoring proficient and above,” Arkansas Education Commissioner Ken James said. “Just three years ago, that milestone seemed a daunting one to reach.”

The scores showed a narrowing of the achievement gap between white and minority students for the second year in a row. The gap between the percentage scoring proficient and above narrowed on eight of the 12 tests between whites and blacks and seven of 12 tests between whites and Hispanics.

“All of these instances represent what we think of as the best kind of narrowing, because all scores improved,” James said. “What you don’t want to see is narrowing due to dropping scores for the higher achieving group.”