Significance of the Study

whole courses and to find out whether the targets have been accomplished or not. 6 In Indonesia education system itself, the use of test as one of the evaluation tools is not a rare thing in this era, whether Progress achievement test or Final achievement test. There are several kinds of tests used in Indonesia education system. From the daily test, as an example of teacher-made test, up to National Examination or frequently called as UN. UN is a standardized test with national scope created by the government. UN is used as one of the government’s tools to evaluate education system in Indonesia. Based on the definition of Hughes, then we can simply categorized UN as Final achievement test. There are several reasons for why UN is categorized as Final achievement test, those are: - UN is done at the end of the teaching and learning process for every level. Grade 6 th in elementary level, 9 th in junior high school level, and 12 th in senior high school level. - UN’s test is the whole materials that have been taught to the students in each level. - UN is also used as one of the tools to evaluate the education condition in Indonesia for a period. It is also strengthened by the government ’s explanation about UN. The government describes that UN ’s purposes is to measure the level of students’ achievement from elementary up to senior high level in national scope. This definition is explained in PP Peraturan Pemerintah Government’s Decree Republic of Indonesia No. 75 Year 2009 about National Examination. 7 Explicitly the Republic of Indonesia government’s decree No. 19 Year 2005 has explained that UN is the responsibility of our government, because it is an evaluation 6 Arthur Hughes, Testing for Language Teachers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 13. 7 Salinan Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan Nasional Nomor 75 Tahun 2009 Tentang Ujian Nasional SMPMTs, SMPLB, SMAMA,SMALB, dan SMK Tahun Pelajaran 20092010. system for our nation’s education. As the impact of it, therefore the whole way of how UN is done belong to our government. UN itself is done with high standard and qualified system. It can be seen from the variety of the tests, type of packages, and the schedule of the tests. The entire high standard is a necessary thing, because the result of UN is something that will be used by an individual for the next step. On the other hand it also shows whether the government has accomplished their target or not. For the allocation of time for UN is normally two hours or 120 minutes. In those time students are required to finish one subject. In senior high school level with the six subjects tested, students are provided with four days for UN. In each day normally there are two subjects tested, depending on their study program. In case of the subjects, there are differences for Senior high school level compared with other level. In senior high school, the students are given six subjects. Three subjects are given based on students’ study program, like IPANatural Science, IPSSocial Science, Bahasa IndonesiaIndonesia language, and others. The three other subjects are tested to all students without seeing the students’ study program; the subjects are Mathematics, Bahasa Indonesia, and English. Every subject has its own characteristics. English, as one of the subjects that is given to all students, has 50 items. The 50 items are divided into two sections; listening section and reading section. Listening section contains 15 items and the other 35 items are reading section. In listening section, students are given audio media in delivering the questions and listening items. Students are given special time to work with their listening test. Just like other listening test in other language test, such as TOEFL, students’ time for listening section will not be extended. Therefore, soon after the material of the audio tape has been delivered, students will have to go on their reading section. In reading section, with total 35 items, students are given several texts with some questions related to the text. The number of test question will be various depending on the text itself. Some texts could only have three questions while the other text could have five or more number of questions.

B. Element of Comprehension

Comprehending reading text will make us connected with term readability of written materials. As comprehension has a strong correlation with texts’ content, diction, coherence, and so on. As reading is an active activity between the author and the reader. In reading activity, the reader will try to understand what is in the written material made by the writer or the author. 8 We can say that in reading there are two elements, those are: - Reader, as the one who convey meaning from a written material. - Written material, as the media uses by the writer to express his or her idea. In this case, the readability will become an important part, because the readability level will affect the quality of written materials. Simply we could say that readability of a text is one of the factors that determine whether a text is good or not. Some experts try to define what readability is. Nuttall explained that readability is a combination of difficulty level of structural and lexical, such as vocabulary. 9 Dalle and Chall explain readability as how the elements of written material affect the level of success of the readers. In this term the level of success of the readers can be seen by the level of understanding of the material, the reading speed level, and the level of interesting. 10 From the definition above, we can say readability affects three elements in reading activity. Those elements are: - Reading understanding - Reading speed 8 Deborah Daiek and Nancy Anter, Critical Reading for College and Beyond, New York: McGraw-Hill, p.5. 9 Christine Nuttall, Teaching Reading Skill in a Foreign Language, Oxford: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., p. 25. 10 William H Dubay, The Principle of Readability, Long Beach: Impact Information, 2004, p. 3.