A STUDY ON THE LEVEL OF THINKING SKILL ON THE ENGLISH FINAL EXAMINATION QUESTIONS

Abstract

The development of the education system in the 21st century has led to fundamental changes in educational objectives, particularly with regard to developing students' thinking skills. This study aims to determine the level of thinking skills assessed by the final semester exam questions for the 10th grade English course at SMA Negeri 1 Tibawa in the 2023/2024 academic year. The study employs a descriptive qualitative approach, collecting data through documentation and interviews. The main instruments used in this study were English Final Semester Exam documents and interviews with English teacher. The data were analyzed based on Bloom's Taxonomy, revised by Anderson and Krathwohl (2001), which categorizes thinking skills as either Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTS) or Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). The results showed that 80% of the exam questions belonged to LOTS, with dominance at the comprehension level (C2). Meanwhile, only 20% of then questions were included in the HOTS category, with the highest percentage at the analyzing level (C4). These results of study suggest that the exam questions do not fully reflect the demands of the 2013 Curriculum and Merdeka Curriculum, which emphasize the development of higher-order thinking skills. Therefore, teachers should strike a better balance between LOTS and HOTS questions in order to optimally develop students' critical thinking skills.