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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
In this chapter I would like to discuss general background of the study, reasons for choosing the topic, statements of the problem, objectives of the study,
hypothesis of the study, significances of the study, scope of the study, and outline of the study.
1.1 Background of the Study
Language teaching deals with four basic language skills namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Listening and reading skills are regarded as
receptive skills while speaking and writing skills are considered to be productive skills. As one of the language skills, reading also plays an important role because
reading has become a part of our daily life. Through reading various printed materials such as newspaper, magazine, fiction, and nonfiction books, we are able
to gain a lot of knowledge, information, pleasure and problem solution. Hence, the ability to read the texts in any forms will contribute a great deal advantage to our
life such as gaining success at school. Reading is a good thing in life because it is a factor of great importance in
the individual development and the most important activity in school. It is needed in every level of field of study. Particularly in cases when students have to read
English materials for their own special subject. Being able to read in English is very important. It is known that success reading is the most necessary because it is
a basic tool of education. All the subjects in Elementary School such as
mathematics, science, language, and others depend on the ability to read. In high school and college reading ability becomes even more important. Through reading
we acquire new ideas, obtain needed information, seek support for our ideas and broaden our interest. We can also get the message that the writer expressess.
Reading is important as the language skill, especially in writing. It is necessary to discuss this skill because learning writing can help the students in
writing English final project. Writing the final project itself required for students starting in the 7
th
semester. The fifth semester students also would be test takers of TOEFL as the requirement of the graduation from the university. Therefore, I
need to know the reading competence of the fifth semester students who had learned material of intensive reading up to advance reading.
To find out the reading profile of the English students, TOEFL test items can be used to measure because TOEFL as one of standardized test. The whole
aspects were tested to determine the student‟s reading mastery can be represented by using TOEFL test.
The aspects are finding meanings in words, phrase, and sentence; inferencing; scanning for details; reading for main ideas and its shown in the table
of specification.
1.2 Reason for Choosing the Topic
