An Analysis of Students' Performance in Answering Multiple-Choice and Short Essay Questions in Reading Test

Multiple-choice and short essay questions are two of many tests that usually teachers use to assess the students’ ability especially in reading test. This research focused on the students’ performance in answering multiple-choice and short essay questions in reading test. The aims of this research are to know the students’ performance and their obstacles in answering multiple-choice and short essay questions. Then, the results based on the students’ answers of interview were analyzed by using qualitative method design. The samples of this research are 15 second grade students of SMAN 1 Tapaktuan in academic year 2019/2020. These participants’s answers of interview were enough to get the result of this research. Through the interview section, the majority of students preferred to do multiple-choice and they found that multiple-choice questions are easier to understand because they have the options. In short, the result of the interview showed that the students’ performance in answering multiple-choice is stronger than short essay questions. Moreover, the result of this research can be concluded that the students’ obstacles in answering multiple-choice and short essay questions were that they had lack of vocabulary, did not understand the meaning of questions and texts, and also the students were confused and doubtful to choose the correct answer.