Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) Based Reading Exercises in an EFL Textbook for the Second-Grade Students of Senior High School

The objective of this research was to find out whether reading exercises in an EFL textbook for the second-grade students of senior high school are in accordance with HOTS indicators. This research adopted qualitative descriptive research and content analysis method. The object of this research was the reading comprehension essay questions in the Bahasa Inggris SMA/MA/SMK/MAK Kelas XI textbook published by the Ministry of Education and Culture in 2018. The items of the essay reading questions were analyzed using the cognitive levels of the revised Bloom’s taxonomy. As the result, the researcher found that the questions categorized as HOTS level obtain 63 out of 94 questions (67%). Meanwhile, 31 out of 94 questions (33%) were categorized as LOTS level. It indicated that this textbook concentrated more on higher-level thinking questions since the most dominant level in the textbook was higher order thinking skills (HOTS).