Abstrak
Abstract This study is to determine the students’ difficulties in understanding a text and to find out the underlying factors. It applied a quantitative descriptive approach. This was done in SMPN 3 Tarakan. The subjects were all 92 students in eighth grade. The instruments to collect the data were a test of reading comprehension, essay questions, and a questionnaire. The consisted of 10 questions including five aspects of comprehension, i.e. main idea, conclusion drawing, identifying the referent, the detail, and vocabulary. The scores were divided into three categories: high, medium, and low. The questionnaire contains 17 open inquiries to determine the factors of their difficulty. Based on the analysis, it is found out that the most difficult aspect for the students is inferring the meaning, as it proved in their lowest average score of 42.7. Meanwhile, the easiest one is the reference for which their average score has reached 58.9, meaning at medium level. Thus, the factors of inferring difficulties are explored further by distributing a questionnaire. Its result indicates that two factors play in them: the internal and external factors. The former includes their low interest, low vocabulary mastery, and their lack of understanding of the text. Meanwhile, the latter covers their family and the school environment.