Reading comprehension questions, reading text appropriateness,
textbook evaluation, Pathway to English 1, Bahasa Inggris: Work in Progress,
Merdeka Curriculum.
E. This study investigates reading comprehension questions and text
appropriateness in two EFL textbooks for tenth-grade Indonesian students
under the Merdeka Curriculum—Pathway to English 1 and Bahasa Inggris:
Work in Progress. Employing qualitative content analysis, it uses Day and
Park's (2005) taxonomy (Literal, Reorganization, Inferential, Prediction,
Evaluative, Personal Response) and Nuttall's (1996) criteria (Suitability,
Exploitability, Readability). The data consist of 27 reading texts and 173
questions from Pathway to English 1, and 10 texts and 78 questions
from Work in Progress. Findings reveal significant differences: Pathway to
English 1 shows a balanced cognitive distribution (56.1% LOTS, 43.9%
HOTS), while Work in Progress is heavily LOTS-dominated (74.4% LOTS,
25.6% HOTS). Both textbooks achieve high text appropriateness—Work in
Progress scores 100% and Pathway to English 1 scores 97.5%. However,
both share a common weakness: prediction and evaluative questions are
absent or very limited. The study concludes that while both are pedagogically
appropriate, Pathway to English 1 better develops higher-order thinking due
to its more balanced design, larger quantity of texts and questions, and greater
genre variety. This research contributes to EFL textbook evaluation and
provides practical recommendations for authors, teachers, and curriculum
developers to align materials with the Merdeka Curriculum's critical thinking
goals.