A STUDY ON THE ABILITY OF THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS OF SMK NEGERI 1 PEKANBARU IN COMPREHENDING TEXTS

Abstract

Abstract: This descriptive research aims to know about the ability level of the second year students of SMK Negeri 1 Pekanbaru in comprehending texts and also to know which aspects of reading is the students’ lowest and highest score in comprehending texts. The population of this research was the second year students of SMK Negeri 1 Pekanbaru that consists of 11 classes, with total 425 students. The sample of this research was five classes, they are X1 Accounting 1, XI Administration Office 1, XI Marketing 1, XI IT 1 and XI Tourism, with total 194 students. The instrument of this research was reading comprehension test with using multiple choice type which consisted 32 questions. There were eight aspects of reading tested: finding factual information, main idea, meaning of certain words, identifying inferences, references, generic structure, social function and language feature. From the results of the test, it was concluded that the average score of students’ ability in reading was 61.09 which was categorized as “good” level. The research finding also shows that students’ lowest score among the eight aspects was in terms of identifying inferences with the average score 48.71, where the highest score was in terms of factual information with the average score 79,25.

Keywords: descriptive research, texts, students’ reading ability