OIS SERIYANTI BLEGUR Pengarang LAURENSIUS KIAN BERA Dosen Pembimbing 1 Merlyn K. Nelloe Dosen Pembimbing 2 Fransiskus Bustan Ketua Penguji Laurensius K. Bera Penguji 1 Merlyn K. Nelloe Penguji 2

This study aims to know the student’s ability in guessing the meaning through the context in comprehending difficult words of a reading passage and to find out the students’ difficulties in guessing the meaning through context in a reading passage made by the second year students of SMA Negeri 1 Kalabahi in the academic year 2022/2023. The problems investigated in this study was 1) to what extent are the students able to guess the meaning through context in comprehending difficult words of a reading passage? 2) What are the student’s difficulties in guessing the meaning through context in reading a passage. This study used descriptive qualitative method The population was 42 second year students of SMA Negeri 1 Kalabahi in the academic year 2022/2022. The writer chose one class which consists of 21 students as the sample. In this study, the writer used two instruments. The first instrument was pre-test and post-test. The second instrument was guided question. The writer found that there were 5 guessing strategies performed by students; context clue, elimination, imagination, similarity, and root of word. Keywords: guessing strategy, comprehending difficult words, and reading passage