THE ABILITY IN UNDERSTANDING NEWS ITEM TEXTS OF THE ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS AT MAN 2 MODEL BANJARMASIN \ud ACADEMIC YEAR 2013/2014.

The problem formulations of this research are: 1). How is students’ ability in understanding news item texts? 2). What are their difficulties in answering question about news item texts? \ud \ud The subjects of this research are 75 students of the eleventh grade at MAN 2 Model Banjarmasin. The objects of this research are to know the ability in understanding news item text of eleventh grade students at MAN 2 Model Banjarmasin and to know their difficulties in answering questions about news item texts. \ud \ud To collect the data, the writer uses some techniques such as test, observation, documentary and interview. Then, all the data are analyzed descriptive quantitatively and concluded inductively. The result of this research shows that the students’ ability in understanding news item texts is categorized fair with average 62, 24 . This research also shows their difficulties in understanding news item texts. From seven type of questions, there are Grammatical Features (31,32%), Main Idea (29,88%), Vocabulary in the Context (43,24 %), Referent (45,27%), Spesific Information (34,87%), Excluding Fact not Written (46,7%), and Idiom/Phrase in the context (50,7%)