The text comprehensibility as seen from the students' comprehension on the English physical science texts with and without cohesive markers

The need of English learners is not limited only in general English, but also spreads to other branches of science, for instance, physical science. Physical science is one of the sciences that makes use of English widely in order to deliver the knowledge to its readers across countries. Most physical science texts used by physical science students use many complex sentences containing cohesive markers that relate sentences. Students have to deal with these markers to comprehend the texts. In facts, many physical science students who do not get sufficient training in general English are forces to read those texts in English by their environment, and they seem to succeed, no matter how their way is. In the study, the writer would like to find out whether the absence of cohesive markers influences the students’ comprehension of English physical science texts. The writer uses students from Engineering Faculty of Widya Mandala Catholic University who take English subject administered by Widya Mandala Language Center as his subjects of the study. They are from two different levels of English mastery, namely Beginning and High Beginning I. To support the purpose of the study, the writer intended to produce statistical information besides the subjects’ opinion to create a clear description toward the objectives of the study. Therefore, he applies two instruments: a set of reading test containing a text with complete cohesive markers (namely Text A) and a text with incomplete cohesive markers (namely Text B, and a set of opinion-questions for collecting subjects’ opinion. Those two instruments are applied to both Beginning level and High Beginning I level. The writer applies a descriptive statistics calculation for counting means of scores in the two levels. The result of the analysis shows that the means of scores for text A and Text B in both levels are different. The difference of means between scores of text A and scores of Text B in Beginning level is 5.2174; the difference of means between scores of Text A and scores of Text B in High Beginning I level is 11.0870. For confirmation, the display of percentage from the set of opinion-questions shows that more subjects in both levels prefer a text with complete cohesive markers. It can be concluded that generally the absence of cohesive markers in English physical science text influences the students’ comprehension