Rany Marsalina Taek Pengarang YANPITHERZON LIUNOKAS Dosen Pembimbing 1 ELISNA HUAN Dosen Pembimbing 2 Yanpitherzon Liunokas Ketua Penguji Novriani Rabeka Manafe Penguji 2 Elisna Huan Penguji 2

This thesis is entitled: “THE ABILITY IN USING DEGREES OF COMPARISON BY EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMPN HOINENO IN ACADEMIC YEAR 2021/2022”. It was conducted to answer the problems: Firstly, to what extend are eighth-grade students of SMPN Hoineno in academic year 2021/2022 able to use degrees of comparison? Secondly, what is the level of ability of the students in using degrees of comparison? Thirdly, what are problems encountered by the students in using degrees of comparison? The aims of this study are to know whether eighth-grade students of SMPN Hoineno are able to use degrees of comparison, to find out the level of ability and to identify problems encountered by the students of SMPN Hoineno in academic year 2021/2022 in using degrees of comparison. This study used quantitative descriptive method. The research was conducted in SMPN Hoineno, especially eighth-grade students in the academic year 2021/2022. There were 120 students as the population, and 30 students were selected as the sample (25% of the population). In collecting the data, the writer used a test. The students were given the multiple choice test and the number of items of the test was 50 items. The writer applied some formulas to analyze the data. The result shows that eighth grade students of SMPN Hoineno in the academic 2021/2022 are able to use degrees of comparison, because there were 22 students got scores 70-100 that fulfilled the SKL (Standar Kelulusan Siswa/Minimum Score Standard), the mean of students’ scores was 73 and the level of students’ ability is categorized into good level. There are some problems encountered by the students of SMPN Hoineno in academic year 2021/2022 in using degrees of comparison. they are the students do not master vocabulary and cannot distinguish between adjectives, nouns, and verbs, they cannot change adjectives ending in y, they should change y into i before adding the ending, they are not able to differentiate adjective with one syllable or more syllables, and they have difficulty in determining whether to use more or most as a prefix. Keywords: Ability, Degree of Comparison, Using.