Abstract:
Reading is one of the important skills that have to be mastered by the
students, especially in junior high school. But, there are many students who are
still difficult in reading comprehension. One of the ways to know the ability and
the difficulties is using biography to motivate the students in reading
comprehension. By using biography, the students can know the story about the
famous person in the past and to be more interested in understanding the text.
The objectives of the study are to know the students’ ability in
comprehending biography and to identify the difficulties in comprehending
biography at the eighth grade students. The research was conducted on 5th and 12th
May 2012 in The State Junior High School 4 Purworejo. The population was
taken from eight classes in eighth grade students.. The sample of this research
consists of 29 students.
This research is presented in descriptive quantitative method. In collecting
the data, the writer did some steps. They are, preparing the research instruments,
giving the test for the students, giving the questionnaire for the students,
collecting the students’ worksheet, analyzing the result of the students’ worksheet
and questionnaire, and classifying the result.
To analyze the result of the test, the writer uses descriptive analysis. The
result of this research showed that the students’ ability in comprehending
biography at the eighth grade students of State Junior High School 4 Purworejo in
the Academic Year 2012/ 2013 is good. The result of the test from 29 students
are: the result of the students’ ability as follows; 15 students (51.72%) are
classified into excellent category, 14 students (48.28%) are classified into good
category, there is no students get score classified into sufficient, fairly sufficient,
and poor category. The result of the students’ difficulties based on the
questionnaire as follows; the percentage of the difficulty in determine main idea is
20.69%, the percentage of the difficulty in finding the supporting idea is 41.38%,
the percentage of the difficulty in vocabulary is 89.65%, the percentage of the
difficulty in interpreting the content of the text is 55.17%, the percentage of the
difficulty in grammar mastery is 86.20%.
