The aims of this research were to know the students’ competence in
reading comprehension at the eighth year students of MTs Negeri Model
Purwokerto and to know the problems of reading comprehension that the eighth
year students of MTs Negeri Model Purwokerto have.
This research was a descriptive research. The population of this research
was the eighth year students of MTs Negeri Model Purwokerto. Collecting the
data was conducted on July 25, 2012. The writer took 32 students as the sample.
The instrument of collecting the data was test, which consisted of five reading
comprehension problems: main idea, vocabulary, identifying, reference, and
inference.
Based on the research findings, the writer concluded that the average of
students’s competence in reading comprehension was 66.71%, and it showed that
generally students had fair mastery in reading comprehension. In line with the
percentage of students’ mistake in reading comprehension on each problem, it
could be concluded that the problem of reading comprehension which had the
highest rank was vocabulary 40.62%, and the lowest rank was inference 26.56%.
It meant that the eighth year students of MTs Negeri Model Purwokerto still have
problems in reading. The most difficult problem was in vocabulary, and the
lowest problem was in inference.