ELSA SAFITRI

SESSION I
RESEARCH II

An Analysis on The third year Students Ability in Answering Personal
Response Question in Reading Comprehension
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the problem
English as an International is used by people as a lool of communication among the
nations in all over the work for some reasons. One of the reasons is English has become the
language of business as bussinessment.
Due to the importance of English already discussed, Indonesia government decided
to enchance English as one of the subjects loaded in curriculum at all levels of education.
English is learnt as one of compulsory subjects at junior High school until senior high
school, and even it is included in to the five subjects tasted Nationally. In the last decade
elementary students are also required to learn English.
Reading is process to get information step by step. It means that if someone read text,
he or she will get new information. Whatever it is, the readers want to get eartain messages
from whatever they read. It means that they can get information from any source like
books, magazine etc.
If we talk about reading, it refers to reading text. According to lipson (in Zakaria
1991:10), reading text is usually followed by some question. The first function of question
in reading comprehension is as a teaching act. The second function of the question is a way
of testing comprehension. Through question the lecturer will know how the student
understand about the text.
One kind of question following text is personal response question. This question
requires the readers to response with their feeling for the and subject (Day. 2005:17) he
also says that in personal response question, it involve inference and evaluation response.
During studying reading subjects, the researcher found many kinds of question in
reading. The students were asked to answer some of personal response question. The
researcher found that the third year students face difficult in comprehending reading text,
specially when the lecturers give some questions. For advanced level in reading
comprehension, the students are asked to their opinions or reasons in answering questions.
Based on the phenomena above the researcher was interested in conducting a study
entitled An analysis on the third year students in ability in answering personal response
questions in reading comprehension.

B. Identification of the Problem
Questions is reading class come from the different sources. The first comes from the
students. The students of university formucate some questions to the lecturer about the
content of text. The next is the questions is that come from the lecturer. In this case the
lecturer make questions and ask the students to answer the orally or in written.
Day (2005;17) divides the types of comprehension questions in to two types :
1. Literal comprehension questions refers to an understanding of the straightforward
meaning of the text, such as facts, vocabulary, dates, time and locations. Questions of
literal comprehension can be answered directly and explicity from the next.
2. reorganization comprehension questions is based on a literal understanding of the text,
students must use information from various parts of the text and combine them in
additional understanding.
C. Limitation of the Problem
Concerning with identification above, the researcher limited her study to the students
ability to answer personal response questions involve two varieties, inference response and
evaluation response in argumentative text. She used argumentative text because this text
needed argument or opinion about readers, point of view and argumentative text was also
provided with debatable uses based on facts. So argumentative text is that can be used for
personal response questions.
D. Formulation of the Problem
Based on limitation of the problem above, the researcher formulated the general
problem of the researcher follow: How is the third year students in answering personal
response questions in reading comprehension.
E. Research Questions
Based on formulation the problem above, research questions answers as follow :
1. Do the students of SMP Pertiwi 1 Padang have problem in comprehending reading text,
when teacher give some question and in answering Personal response question in
reading comprehension?

F. Purpose of the Research
1. To help student answering question by teacher in reading comprehension.

G. Significant of the Problem
The Significant this is to guide or helped to the teacher questions and class
management using answering Personal Response question in teaching reading, help
students interact with the text, for the student help to improve reading comprehension
abilities. This can be by making sure that students keep the text in front of answering
questions on the text. So that students are actively involved in creating meaning.

H. Definition of key Term
To avoid misunderstanding in some conceptual terms, it is ricessary for the
researcher to define the meaning of some key terms used in this study. They are asa follow:
1. Ability in reading is the skill or competence in answering reading comprehension
questions.
2. Personal response comprehension questions is a kind of question which requires the
readers to response with their feeling for the text and subjects .
3. Inference response refers to readers are combining their literal understanding of the
text.
4. Evaluation response requires the learners to give a global or comprehensive judgement
about aspect of the text.