A STUDY ON THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS’ ABILITY TO COMPREHEND READING TEXT BASED ON THE LEVEL OF KNOWLEDGE QUESTIONS AT SMAN 1 SIJUNJUNG

This study was designed to describe the ability of the second year students to comprehend reading text according to the levels of question at SMAN 1 Sijunjung. To be more specific it aimed at describing students’ ability to comprehend reading text according to the levels of knowledge question, comprehension question, application question and analysis question. This research was descriptive in nature. The population of this research was the second year students at SMAN 1 Sijunjung. The number of members of population was 165 students. The researcher took 80 students as the sample. In selecting sample, the researcher used stratified cluster random sampling technique. The data of this research were the students’ scores on comprehending text according to the levels of question. To take the data, the researcher used reading test. In analyzing the data, there were some steps she used: the first was presentation of raw scores and calculation of Mean and Standard Deviation. The second was classifying the students’ ability into high, moderate, and low ability. The third was determining the percentage of the students who had high, moderate, and low ability. The result of the data analysis showed that the ability of the second year students to comprehend reading text according to the levels of question at SMAN 1 Sijunjung was moderate. It was proved by the fact that 41 students (51.25%) had moderate ability. Specifically, the ability of the students to comprehend reading text at the level of knowledge question was moderate. It was proved by the fact that 53 students (66.25%) had moderate ability. Based on the findings above, it was suggested that the teachers give more exercises, beginning from the low levels of question to the high levels of question. It was also suggested to the teachers that they must promote a discussion to answer the questions on the texts being taught.


I INTRODUCTION
Reading ability is one of the four basic skills in English taught at senior high school. This skill focuses on reading comprehension. Reading comprehension is the interaction between the text being read and the readers' existing prior knowledge and expectations will generate meaning and comprehension (Leu and Kinzer, 1995). Basically, the main purpose of conducting reading activity is to gain ideas and information. However, conducting reading Jurnal  activity with deep comprehension is not easy. As a matter of fact, the students often feel unable to comprehend their reading text. They often feel hard to figure out ideas in the text that they have just read. From the writer's discussion with some senior high school students especially at the second year of Senior High School 1 Sijunjung, it is obvious that almost all of the students faced problems dealing with reading activities that lead students to comprehend texts. Among the other factors, question also plays an important role in comprehending the text. It is a natural way to learn and to satisfy students' curiosity. It leads the students to think and make the decision. By questioning, the students have an opportunity to be creative to use their mind. Then, question can be used to stimulate thinking and to enhance cognitive process and comprehension ability. In addition, questioning is also a strategy to check the students' understanding of the text. At senior high school, especially at the second year of Senior High School 1 Sijunjung, the students were asked by the teacher to answer the questions written in the textbook they used. Just in few of English teachers made various questions by considering the types of questions; literal, interpretive and applied questions. In addition, Carver (1963) states that the teachers tended to give more literal questions than interpretive and applied reading comprehension questions to their students. In other word highest level of reading questions are rarely included in the text books. As a result, most Indonesian students could not think well and tended to be passive. It arises a problem in teaching process (Kim, 1960). In this research the researcher focuses on the questions that are asked to comprehend the texts used in teaching and learning reading at the second year students of Senior High School 1 Sijunjung. Furthermore, this research only deals with the levels of questions according to Bloom's taxonomy, namely knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. From these six categories based on Bloom's above, the researcher limits on four categories; knowledge, comprehension, application and analysis. The levels of knowledge, comprehension and application question include of low level of question while, analysis question include of high level of question. The reason was that Bloom's taxonomy of level of questions has been wellknown and quite popular among educators, and it categorizes the cognitive processes involved in learning. The researcher took one category from bloom because the researcher has done observation to the school and, the category has included from low to high level of questions. In accordance with the forms of questions, it only focuses on w-h questions. Based on the problem above, researcher is interested in doing a research to find out the ability of the second year students of SMA N 1 Sijunjung to comprehend reading text based on the level of knowledge questions.

II RESEARCH METHOD
This research is descriptive in nature. It is designed to describe students' ability to comprehend reading text according to the levels of questions. Gay (1987:189) says that the descriptive research involves collecting data in order to answer the question concerning the current status of subject of the study. In this case, the researcher conducts to find out the students' ability to comprehend reading text based on the level of knowledge questions. The population of research is the second year students of SMAN 1 Sijunjung which are registered in the academic year of 2019/2020. The total numbers of the members of population is 165 students. They are distributed in 6 classes (I.A , I.A , I.S , I.S , I.S , and I.S ) and each class had 28, 27, 29, 28, 26 and 27 students respectively. In SMAN 1 Sijunjjung, I.A means the second year students of exact science (IPA) while, I.S means the second year students who study in social science (IPS).
In selecting the sample of the research, the researcher used stratified cluster random sampling technique. Stratified sampling was used because the groups were divided in two majors; I.A and I.S. Cluster random sampling is used because the members of population are already grouped into classes. In the context of this research, random sampling is used because the members of the population are homogenous; they are taught with the same materials and syllabus.
The researcher had chosen one class randomly from I.A as a sample and two classes randomly from I.S. The sample of I.S is bigger than I.A because I.S classes' population is more than I.A. It means I.S has four classes while, I.A has two classes In choosing the sample, the researcher uses six small pieces of paper. There are two classes from I.A and four classes from I.S. And then, the researcher writes the names of each class one piece of paper. They are rolled and mixed up into two boxes. After that, she invites the representative of each class to take one paper. The representative who takes a numbered paper is decided to be a sample. Finally, class I.A was a sample, which consisted of 16 students and, class I.S which consisted 20 students and I.S which consisted 19 students as samples. The instrumentation used to collect data in this research is reading comprehension test. The test is in the form of w-h questions. This test is aimed to measure the students' ability to comprehend reading text based on the level of knowledge questions. In this research, the researcher will give texts taken from the reading text book used at the second year's students at SMAN 1 Sijunjung. The texts cover several topics, and each text consisted of several paragraphs. The total numbers of test item were 40 items. The time of this test was 90 minutes. In gathering the data the researcher used reading test. The test will be administrated to collect the data about the students' ability to comprehend reading text according to the level of questions (knowledge, comprehension, application, and analysis questions). After administering the test, the researcher will analyze the students' answer by giving the score. The researcher will collect the data by following the procedures as follows: 1. The researcher read and identifies the students' answer one by one.
2. The researcher gives 1 for correct answer and 0 for wrong answer. From 30 items of the reading test, the highest possible score was 30 and the lowest possible score was 0. In analyzing the data, the researcher will count the percentage of the students' grade in comprehending reading comprehension questions. To do this, the researcher will follow some steps above: 1. The researcher will present the raw scores of each sample and calculated Mean (M) and Standard Deviation (SD). The researcher will use formulas that suggested by Arikunto, 2005 3. Finally, the researcher will determine the percentage of the students who get high, moderate, and low ability. The researcher will use the following formula by (Arikunto,1996: 260) P = T R X100% Where: P = Percentage of students' score R = Sum of the students who answer correctly T = Sum of students

III RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The researcher presents the findings of the study and discussion. The findings and discussion were classified into the students' ability to comprehend reading text according to the levels of question, students' ability to comprehend reading text at the level of Jurnal  knowledge question. This part presents the findings of the students' ability to comprehend reading text according to the levels of question. In measuring the students' ability to comprehend reading text according to the level of questions, the students' score was counted. After the researcher checked and gave the scores for the students' answer, the researcher found that the lowest score to comprehend the text according to the level of questions was 9 and the highest was 24. It was also found that the mean was 16.4 and standard deviation was 3.6. As already discussed, this study classified the students' ability into three groups (high, moderate and low). Students' ability was categorized as high if their scores were higher than 20. It was categorized as moderate if their scores were in the range of 12.8 to 20 and it was categorized as low if their scores were lower than 12.8. Finally, the researcher calculated the percentage of the students' ability, and it was found that 18 students (22.5%) had high ability, 41 students (51.25%) had moderate ability, and 21 students (26.25%) had low ability.
In specifically, there are several levels of question in this research as follow. Dealing with the students' ability to comprehend reading text according to the level of knowledge questions, it was found that the lowest score was 4 and the highest score was 7. Then the researcher calculated the score and got 5.6 for mean and 0.98 for standard deviation. Students' ability was categorized as high if their scores were higher than 6.58. It was categorized as moderate if their scores were in the range of 4.62 to 6.58, and it was categorized as low if their scores were lower than 4.62 After that, the researcher classified the students' ability into three groups (high, moderate, and low). Finally, the researcher calculated the percentage of the students' ability.

Discussion
Based on the result of the data analysis, it was found that the ability of most of the second year students at SMAN 1 Sijunjung to comprehend reading text according to the levels of question was moderate. It indicated that the majority of the students had moderate ability (51.25%). It means their ability was not appropriate with the expectation Competencies-Based Curriculum of senior high school. The researcher found that the problem may be caused by lack knowledge of students about the levels of question in forming the low levels to the high levels question in comprehending reading text and also supporting by lack of vocabulary to understand the reading text. In specifically, the levels of question in this research can be discussed as follow: The ability of most of the students at SMAN 1 Sijunjung to comprehend reading text at the level of knowledge questions was moderate. It was indicated by the fact that the majority of the students had moderate ability (66.25%). It means their ability was not appropriate with the expectation Competencies -Based Curriculum of senior high school. The researcher found that the problem may be caused by lack knowledge of students on comprehending the text at the level of knowledge question. It was indicated by students' answer on some questions. For example, the question "what made the area take on a carnival atmosphere in 1853?" could be answered correctly only by 23 out of 80 students. In other words, in order to be able to answer questions at this level, students need to increase their knowledge and understanding to comprehend reading text at the level of knowledge question.

IV CONCLUSION
After interpreting the finding of data analysis it can be concluded that the ability of the second year students at SMAN 1 Sijunjung to comprehend reading text according to the levels of question was moderate. It was proved by the fact that 41 out of 80 students (51.25%) had moderate ability. It means that the ability of the students to comprehend reading text according to the levels of question was not appropriate with the expectation Competencies-Based Curriculum of senior high school.
In specifically, based on the levels of question it can be concluded as follow: The ability of the second year students at SMAN I Sijunjung to comprehend reading text based on the level of knowledge question was moderate. It was proved by the fact that 53 out of 80 students (66.25%) had moderate ability.

Suggestion
Based on the result of the research, the ability of the students to comprehend reading text at the level of knowledge question was moderate.
Because of that, English teacher should emphasize their teaching at the level of knowledge question and give more exercises to the students on comprehending the text in this level.