Students Ability and Problems in Writing Review Text at Grade XII SMAN 4 Kerinci

This research was aimed to find out the students‟ ability in writing review text, the students‟ problems in writing review text and the causes for the problems. The design of research was descriptive. The subject of the research was the students of class XII IPA in SMAN 4 Kerinci which consisted of 12 boys and 13 girls. Instruments used to collect the data in this research are quantitative data and qualitative data. The quantitative data were from the writing test conducted in the class. The qualitative data were from the result of interview done to 25 students. The quantitative and qualitative data were grouped based on the indicators. The result from quantitative analyzing and qualitative analyzing were interpreted to get the result of the research. From the result of the research, the writer found that the students‟ ability in writing review text was fair. The average score of the students on writing review text was 64,84. Although the students‟ ability was fair, the students also found some problems in writing review text; they are: vocabulary, grammar, generic structure, organizing idea and mechanics. It was found that the factors which caused the students‟ problems were interference of first language, complexity of target language and lack of knowledge about writing components.