The Third Year Students’ Ability to Answer

Abstrak

Reading is one of four basic languages  skills that should be mastered by someone who learns a language. According to Hornby (2005), reading is defined as the activity of somebody who reads. Reading is the window of the world. It is necessity not only for the students or the peoplein formal education, but also for all the people in all ages, status, professions.

The purpose of this research was to describe the third year students’ ability to answer  comprehension question in TOEFL text at English Department of Bung Hatta University. The population of this research was the third year students at English Department of Bung Hatta University. The total sample members were 28 students, and they were chosen by using total sampling technique. The method used in this study was descriptive method. In collecting data, the reseacher used reading TOEFL test taken from TOEFL-like test encoded 1995-3RTF27 and 1995-3RTF07had validity and reability index by 0.96 and 0.95 respectively.

The results of data analysis showed that the third year students’ ability to answer comprehension questions in TOEFL text was low. It was proved by the fact that 0 students (0%) had high ability, 2 students (7.1%) had moderate ability, and  26 students (92.9%) had low ability. Specifically, the third year students’ ability to answer comprehension question in TOEFL text which require them to indicate ideas was low.It was proved by the fact that the majority of students (71 %) had low ability, 18%  students had moderate ability and 11% students had high ability.The third year students’ ability to answer comprehension question in TOEFL text which requires them to express ideas was low. It was proved by the fact that the majority of students (82%) had low ability, 7% students had moderate, and 11% students had high ability. This study also found that the third year students’ ability to answer comprehension questions in TOEFLtext which require them to explain details was low. It was proved by the fact the majority of students (71 %) had low ability, 22% students had moderate ability, 7% students had high ability. The third year students’ ability to answer comprehension question in TOEFLtext which requires them to demonstrate details was low. It was proved by the fact the majority of students (92.9 %) had low ability, 0% students had moderate ability, 7.1% students had high ability.

In conclusion, the result of this study showed that students’ abilityto answer comprehension questions in TOEFL text was low. Therefore, the students are suggested to do the exercises about TOEFL reading comprehension test constantly get better ability.

Keywords : reading, TOEFL, comprehension questions