STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN ANSWERING READING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS OF REPORT TEXT AT THIRD GRADE OF SMPN 1 BENGKULU SELATAN

This research aimed to find out the students difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions of report text and the causes of the students difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions of report text. The participants of this research were 63 third grade students at SMPN 1 Bengkulu Selatan. This research used descriptive quantitative as research design. The data were obtained through the reading comprehension test and interview section. The reading comprehension test was adapted from Mandiri textbook published by Tiga Serangkai consisted 25 questions of multiple choice. The reading comprehension test was validated by using the interpretation guidelines according to SPSS. In reliability obtains by using Cronbach’s Alpha formula in SPSS software. The result of this research showed that students faced some difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions of report text and there were some causes of their difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions of report text. The students difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions were locating pronouns, understanding vocabulary and making inference. Making inference became the most difficult aspect with percentage of students who answered questions about making inference incorrectly was 73%. The causes of students difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions of report text were lack of vocabulary, lack of strategies and lack of interest or motivation.


Reading Comprehension, Difficulties, Report Text
This research aimed to find out the students difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions of report text and the causes of the students difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions of report text. The participants of this research were 63 third grade students at SMPN 1 Bengkulu Selatan. This research used descriptive quantitative as research design. The data were obtained through the reading comprehension test and interview section. The reading comprehension test was adapted from Mandiri textbook published by Tiga Serangkai consisted 25 questions of multiple choice. The reading comprehension test was validated by using the interpretation guidelines according to SPSS. In reliability obtains by using Cronbach's Alpha formula in SPSS software. The result of this research showed that students faced some difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions of report text and there were some causes of their difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions of report text. The students difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions were locating pronouns, understanding vocabulary and making inference. Making inference became the most difficult aspect with percentage of students who answered questions about making inference incorrectly was 73%. The causes of students difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions of report text were lack of vocabulary, lack of strategies and lack of interest or motivation.

K A T A K U N C I ABSTRAK Pemahaman
Membaca, Kesulitan, Teks Report.
APA 7 th Citation: Please do not write anything here. It will be filled by the editorial team after the acceptance. Reading is regarded as a key fundamental skill in language learning. Reading is the process of acquiring and comprehending the content of a text. According to Tarigan (2008) reading is a cycle that is carried out and used by a reader to get the message conveyed by the author through words that could be seen and known by the reader. Start with the information from the text and then the readers conclude what they receives, reading may be defined as a process of how information from the text is processed into meaning (Hasibuan, 2020). Similarly, Gilakjani (2016) stated that reading is a mutual reaction of reader to convey the meaning from the text using effective reading strategies. It means students are expected to get new various information and knowledge through reading. According to Diana (2020) to increase the information and knowledge, students must have good reading ability. Reading ability will affect students learning process, students who have a good reading ability will usually find it easier to get new information and knowledge from the text they have read. However, students who have low reading ability will usually find it difficult to get new information and knowledge from the text they have read. Due to the importance of having a good reading ability, students can improve their reading ability by regular practice. In other words, more practice means better reading ability. In reading, there is one important ability namely reading comprehension. Since each lesson is inextricably linked to the act of reading, reading comprehension is necessary in every topic (Febriani, 2019). According to Bobby (2020) reading comprehension is a skill to understand the meaning of sentences, the ideas and the relationships between ideas conveyed in a piece of writing. In addition, Bulut (2017) reading comprehension is the process of knowing the student's knowledge of vocabulary, the interaction of understanding the text and also the strategies that students used to understand the meaning of the text. This implies that reading comprehension is not only a process of reading a text, but also a process of understanding a text and its meaning. Reading comprehension will affect students' learning process. Students who have a good ability in reading comprehension will easy to find their goals in reading a text. However, in reality there are some students who have low ability in comprehend English text. This can be caused by several reasons, one of the reasons is lack of vocabulary. When I was doing my internship as a teacher at SMP Negeri 1 Bengkulu Selatan, I found most students had difficulties in understanding the text that they read for several reasons. The difficulties faced by students in understanding the text cause them to find it difficult to answer questions related to the text. In fact, there are some factors that make students feel difficult in reading comprehension of English text. Qrqez (2017) stated that students find it difficult in reading comprehension because they find some confusing words, unfamiliar words, and do not have enough time to comprehend the text. Likewise, Al-Jarrah (2018) said that the main issue in reading comprehension difficulties is the lack of capacity to detect the types of text or text structure which is followed by inattention, difficult word, and grammatical knowledge. Furthermore, Riadil (2020) stated that students are difficult in understanding the text, pronounce a word correctly, acquiring vocabulary, connecting the ideas, understanding the contents of texts that serve in different cultures, inferring information, distinguishing the central ideas and supporting ideas in texts. From several previous studies, students find it difficult in reading comprehension that caused by various factors. However, reading comprehension is important in order to achieve the learning objectives. Based on the explanation above, in this research the researchers would like to identify what are the difficulties and the causes of difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions that faced by third grade students of SMP 1 Bengkulu Selatan in English lesson class. From the description above, the researchers would like to conduct the research entitled, ''Students' Difficulties in Answering Reading Comprehension Questions of Report Text at Third Grade of SMPN 1 Bengkulu Selatan''.

Participants / Subject / Population and Sample (Level 2)
The researchers used a a descriptive quantitative research as method to investigate the students' difficulties and the causes of difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions of report text that faced by third grade students of SMP 1 Bengkulu Selatan. The researchers used descriptive quantitative method because the researchers described the findings of the data in a descriptive form. In the other words, in this research the researchers described and showed the data about students' difficulties and the causes of the difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions of report text that faced by the students.

Instruments (Level 2)
In collecting the data, the researchers used reading test and interview as the instrument to collect the data. Reading test is aims to measure students' difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions. The researchers used a reading test in multiple choice forms which consisted of 25 numbers of questions which were adapted from Mandiri textbook published by Tiga Serangkai and interviewed ten students who got the lowest score on reading test.

Data Analysis Procedures (Level 2)
After collecting the data, the researchers analyzed the data using formula as follow: P = x 100% Information: P = Percentage of the students who answer the item incorrect f = total number of students who answer the item incorrect n = total number of the students (Sudjiono, 2004) The researchers classified the level of students' difficulties in answering reading comprehension by using the classification value of difficulty as follow: Interval Classification Based on the data that shown above, the findings found as follows: the percentage of students who answered questions about determining idea incorrectly (61%), it means that determining idea indicated as fair. Locating pronouns and understanding vocabulary indicated as difficult types of question with the percentage of students who answered questions about locating pronouns and understanding vocabulary incorrectly (72%). Making inference is the most difficult type of question with the percentage of students who answered questions about making inference incorrectly (73%). Specific information question type indicated as fair question type with percentage of students who answered the questions about specific information (66%). The data above showed that the majority of students faced the difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions in three question types. Those question types are making inference, locating pronouns and understanding vocabulary. The most difficult question type that faced by third grade students of SMPN 1 Bengkulu Selatan is making inference.

The Causes of Students' Difficulties in Answering Reading Comprehension of Report Text
The researchers conducted interview to ten students who got the lowest score in reading test in order to answer the second question in this research. The interview was recorded and then the researchers transcribed and analyzed it. Based on the finding of the interview, the research found that there were some factors that causes students difficult in answering reading comprehension questions. The majority of the students in the interview answered that they difficult in understanding English text because they only have limited vocabulary. Meanwhile, in report text they often encountered new vocabulary that they do not know what the meaning of it. The majority of students also lack of the strategies, they said that they do not have a strategy or technique in understanding the content of the text which makes it difficult for them to understand the content of the text. There were only three students who use strategies or techniques in understanding the content of the text, those strategies are read the text multiple times. Moreover, from the interview almost all students said that disliked reading an English text. It means the students were lack of the interest or motivation in understanding the content of an English text. There were only three students who answered they like read an English text. All students also said reading an English text is difficult. Based on the discussion result above, there were three factors that causes students difficult in answering reading comprehension questions of report text that faced by third students of SMPN 1 Bengkulu Selatan. Those factors are lack of the vocabulary, lack of strategies and lack of interest or motivation. The most factor that causes students difficult in answering reading comprehension questions was lack of vocabulary because all the students who got interviewed answered they often find new word that they do not know what the meaning of it. DISCUSSION Based on the result of the reading comprehension test to 63 students of SMPN 1 Bengkulu Selatan, the researchers found that the majority of the students have difficulty in answering reading comprehension test of report text. This can be seen from the reading comprehension test results, none of the students who have taken the reading comprehension test have passed the minimum criteria of mastery learning (KKM). In this research, the difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions were classified according to the type of question. There were five types of questions in the reading comprehension test. Those types are determining idea, locating pronouns, making inference, specific information and understanding vocabulary. Therefore, researchers used the classification value of difficulty as follow Arikunto (1998).
Locating pronouns indicated as difficult type of questions with the percentage of students who answered questions locating pronouns incorrectly (72%), four out of five questions of locating pronouns indicated as difficult question for students with the percentage of students who answered questions incorrectly 70-82%. Understanding vocabulary also indicated as difficult type of question with the percentage of students who answered questions incorrectly same as locating pronouns (72%), four out of five questions of understanding vocabulary indicated difficult question for students with the percentage of students who answered those questions incorrectly 79-81%. Moreover, based on the result of the percentage of students who answered questions incorrectly, making inference indicated as the most difficult question type for the students with the percentage of students who answered questions incorrectly 73%, four out of five questions of making inference indicated as difficult question for the students with the percentage of students who answered questions incorrectly 76-87%.
Meanwhile, determining idea and specific information question types indicated as fair question because the percentage of students who answered questions about determining idea and specific information are below 70%. The percentage of students who answered questions incorrectly for determining idea is 61% and for specific information is 66%. Based on the discussion above, there are three difficulties faced by third grade students of SMPN 1 Bengkulu Selatan in answering reading comprehension questions of report text. Those difficulties are difficult in determining main idea, difficult in locating inference and difficult in making reference. Therefore, the most difficult question type that faced by students in answering reading comprehension questions of report text is making inference questions.
The second one is about the causes of the difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions of report text that faced by third students of SMPN 1 Bengkulu Selatan. The researchers conducted interview to ten students in order to answer the second question in this research. The interview was recorded and then the researchers transcribed and analyzed it. Based on the result of the interview, the research found that there were some factors that causes students difficult in answering reading comprehension questions. The majority of the students in the interview answered that they difficult in understanding English text because they only have limited vocabulary. Meanwhile, in report text they often encountered new vocabulary that they do not know what the meaning of it. The majority of students also lack of the strategies, they said that they do not have a strategy or technique in understanding the content of the text which makes it difficult for them to understand the content of the text. There were only three students who use strategies or techniques in understanding the content of the text, those strategies are read the text multiple times. Moreover, from the interview almost all students said that disliked reading an English text. It means the students were lack of the interest or motivation in understanding the content of an English text. There were only three students who answered they like read an English text. All students also said reading an English text is difficult. Based on the discussion result above, there were three factors that causes students difficult in answering reading comprehension questions of report text that faced by third students of SMPN 1 Bengkulu Selatan. Those factors are lack of the vocabulary, lack of strategies and lack of interest or motivation. The most factor that causes students difficult in answering reading comprehension questions was lack of vocabulary because all the students who got interviewed answered they often find new word that they do not know what the meaning of it. The results of this research was similar to Hidayati (2018) who found students' difficulties in answering reading comprehension by using five aspects of reading comprehension by Nuttal (1982). The similarities between this research and Hidayati's research were both used Nuttal's theory (1982) to finding the students'difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions. In this research the researchers found that students have three difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions, those difficulties were making inference, understanding vocabulary and locating pronouns or reference. This result was similar to Hidayati (2018), Hidayati's research revealed that the students have three difficulties in answering reading comprehension question, those difficulties were making inference, locating reference and finding the main idea.
However, the diffirences were this research found the causes of students difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions were lack of the vocabulary, lack of strategies and lack of interest or motivation. Meanwhile, Hidayati (2018) found the causes of students difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions were lack of grammatical of sentence, hard concentrating and lack of learning media. The results of this research was in contras with the previous research from Saraswati (2021). Saraswati's research revealed that the students have difficulty in all five types of question of reading comprehension. Those were determining idea, locating reference, understanding vocabulary meaning, making inference and finding specific information. Saraswati (2021) revealed that the most difficult type of question that encountered by students was determining idea with the percentage of the difficulty 72%. Meanwhile, in this research the researchers found that students have three difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions, those difficulties were making inference, understanding vocabulary and locating pronouns or reference. Saraswari in her research only focuses on finding students difficulties in answering reading comprehension question. Meanwhile, this research also focuses on finding the causes of the difficulties in answering reading comprehension questions faced by student. CONCLUSIONS Based on the finding and data analysis, this research has answered the research questions presented in the previous chapter, and it can be concluded that: First, it was found that there were three difficulties that faced by students in answering reading comprehension questions of report text. those difficulties were locating pronouns, understanding vocabulary and making inference. Making inference became the most difficult aspect in answering reading comprehension questions. Second, there were three causes of the difficulties that faced by students in answering reading comprehension questions. Those were lack of vocabulary, lack of strategies and lack of interest or motivation.