TEST TAKING STRATEGIES ON READING SECTION OF TOEFL PBT USED BY ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH YOGYAKARTA

*59 This research was to find out the test taking strategies on reading section of TOEFL Paper Based Test (PBT) used by the students of English Education of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY). There were two research questions in this research, (1) what test taking strategies used by students’ of English Education Department of UMY in answering the TOEFL PBT reading test, and (2) what are the effects of the test taking strategies toward the students’ TOEFL PBT reading score. The methodology used in this research was qualitative descriptive with purposive sampling. The setting of the research was at the English Education of UMY, and there were six participants from the students of batch 2011 who had been interviewed. The data obtained from the interviews were analyzed in three steps of coding: the open, axial, and selective coding. To answer the first research question, the result showed that there were some tests-taking strategies on reading section based on its types of question. First, in main idea question, the participants mentioned that there were three test taking strategies: (a) reading the first sentence of each paragraph, (b) reading the first sentence in the first paragraph, and (c) reading the first sentence in the first paragraph and the last sentence in the last paragraph. Second, in stated and unstated detail questions, the participants mentioned that there were two test taking strategies: (a) understanding the keywords in question and finding them in the reading passage and (b) matching the answer options toward the reading passage. Third, in implied detail question, the participants mentioned that there were two test taking strategies, (a) finding the answer based on understanding the previous question types and (b) understanding the keywords in question and finding them in the reading passage. Four, in vocabulary question, the participants mentioned that there were three test taking strategies, (a) finding the meaning through the sentence context (Synonym), (b) guessing the meaning, (c) finding the noun from the previous sentence (refers to). Five, in where question, the participants mentioned that there were two test taking strategies, (a) understanding the keywords in question and finding them in the reading passage and (b) matching the answer options toward the reading passage. On the other hand, to answer the second research question, the respondents argued that the test taking strategies gave effects in improving their TOEFL PBT scores.