ADRIANA S. NEOLAKA Pengarang FRANSISKUS BUSTAN Dosen Pembimbing 1 DEWI I N BILI BORA Dosen Pembimbing 2 Fransiskus Bustan Ketua Penguji Dewi I N Bili Bora Penguji 1 SOLEMAN DAPA TAKA Penguji 2

The aims of this study are: (1) to find out the ability level of the tenth grade students of SMKN 2 KUPANG in writing descriptive text and (2) to find out the difficulties by the tenth grade students of SMKN 2 KUPANG in writing descriptive text. The method used in this study was descriptive quantitative method. The subject of this study was the tenth grade students of SMKN 2 KUPANG. The total number of students in class X was 30, but the writer only chose 6 students randomly as the sample of this study. The instrument use in this study was writing test. The collected data were analyzed based on two aspects of writing, namely; grammar and vocabulary. The result of this study shows that the tenth grade students of SMKN 2 KUPANG are able to write a descriptive text with the level of ability was classified as average with the percentage was 3.45%. There are some difficulties encountered by the students especially dealing with grammar, such as the use of simple present tense, word choice, spelling and punctuation. Therefore, the writer suggestions the teacher of SMKN 2 KUPANG to pay more attention on the teaching of grammar especially the used of simple present tense in writing descriptive text, choice of word, punctuation and spelling. Keywords: ability, writing, descriptive text, tenth grade, students.