THE STRATEGIES APPLIED BY EFL LEARNERS TO OVERCOME MORPHO-SYNTACTIC DEVIATION IN SECTION 2 OF TOEFL TEST IN A PESANTREN-BASED UNIVERSITY

The study aims at revealing the morphological and syntactical deviations patterned by EFL students, and their strategies to respond structure and written expression of TOEFL-Like Test. 70 students participated in this study. The students who were from study programs of English Literature, Technical Information, and Political Sciences of Universitas Sains Alqur’an were involved in this study. Their feedback were analyzed based on a qualitative approach. The findings exposed that 70 test-takers constructed 1.711 morpho-syntactic deviations. The most six morpho-syntactic problematic queries based on EFL students’ responses are epithet in parallel structure, subject-verb needs, object needs in noun phrase forms, quantifier-noun agreement, inversion of negative expression, connector subject pronoun in the adjective clause. Concerning strategies adopted by the students, they revealed that paying to the object of the preposition, focusing on past participles, making in mind that verbs of the sentence agree to the subject in cases of prepositional phrases, making in mind verbs agreement on an expression of quantity cases, and focusing on the present participle questions need to be put in. Furthermore, this study suggested that the EFL students are encouraged to take into consideration those six most morpho-syntactic deviations.


A. INTRODUCTION
ased on the previous research findings conducted by Rofik, Christina, & Hidayah (2020), students of UNSIQ experienced section 2 of TOEFL-Like as the most challenging skill. Furthermore, they found that of 2811 respondents, most of them were categorized as basic users. However, the study still showed a general finding. Therefore, the current research stands in need to be conducted to deliver more definitive results.
Furthermore, EFL learners are called for realizing what skills they acknowledge enough and what skills they need to improve so that they can achieve significant levels in answering section 2 of the TOEFL-Like Test. Again, Handayani (2019) stated that lack of strategies in conducting TOEFL test caused students to gain problems in section 2.
Even though the study of section 2 of the TOEFL Test had been conducted by some researchers, such as Ananda, 2016& Handayani, 2019, this research proposed different contexts. Ananda studied undergraduate students in the state university of Syiah Kuala, and then Handayani proposed the study in Poltekes Solok. However, this study is designed to unveil the problems in section 2 of the TOEFL-Like Test in a developing Islamic university B that is not mostly uncovered yet. Many universities have a similar characteristic to UNSIQ as a developing Pesantren-based University in Indonesia.
Also, the study of English proficiency test that presents a new normal in the pandemic era is rarely found. Moreover, the class is held by proposing an online manner. Therefore, the EFL students of undergraduate levels run into new experiences. As the consequence, they are inclined to have distinct experiences. As found by Subekti (2020), she stated that online learning model experienced inadequate infrastructures, teacher's limited pedagogical competencies, and the lack of communication of students-teachers, and teachers-students.
Therefore, the learning achievement may be not maximal. Moreover, the TOEFL-Like Test adopted in this study proposes a Test from Home (TFH). Similar findings are also resulted by Rahman (2020).
Because the TOEFL study in covid-19 period still remains uncovered, the study of section 2 of TOEFL-Like Test that the EFL students of Pesantren-based university follow the class virtually is considered important to be conducted. Since the section 2 consists of structuer and written expression, therefore morpho-syntaxtic study is appropriate in this research.
Following up on the background of the study, the researcher proposed two research questions. (1) What morpho-syntactic deviation is made by the students?, and (2) How do the students analyze morpho-syntactic deviation tested in section 2 of TOEFL?. Based on those research questions, this study provides two objectives of the study. They are (1) to know morpho-syntactic deviation conducted by the students, and (2) to know the strategies applied by the students to analyze morpho-syntactic problems tested in TOEFL section 2.

Morphology
Morphology is defined as the study of the smallest segments of a language. Morphology therefore studies morphemes. O'dwyer (2000: 19) stated that a morpheme is the minimum different parts of grammar. Furthermore, he affirmed that the parts usually mean little or nothing for the beginning of speakers. In line with O'dwyer, Broderick (1975: 26), Brinton & Brinton (2010: 82) declared that morphemes are abstract meaning labels that are attached to the smallest meaningful units of utterances in a language.
Following morphemes, they are divided into two, namely bound morphemes (BMs) and free morphemes (FMs). BMs cannot stand by themselves because they need second morphemes either combined with FMs or another BM. For example, the word encourages that contains a prefix en and a suffix s as BMs are combined with courage as FMs. Meanwhile, the affix en is different from s. The prefix en is a derivational verb, whilst the affix s is an inflectional form. The inflection s is used to sign a particular tense. Commonly, inflectional s occurs when a subject of a sentence has a third person singular, such as she, he, or it. Furthermore, the word courage is distinct from en and s. This is FMs, therefore the part can stand by its self as an adjective (Adj). Table   1 gives us an illustration of the morpheme encourages.

Syntax
Syntax studies the construction of how a word is placed together to create a phrase, then how a phrase is placed together to build a bigger phrase or a clause, and how a clause is put together to construct a sentence (Miller, 2002). Furthermore, he stated syntax as a neutral study concerning correct and incorrect language. There are too many advertisements during television shows (Pyle & Munos, 1991: 43) √ Simple present 2 The thousands whom the tidal wave killed lived on the island of Java (Wishon & Burks, 1980 English is divided into two types, namely standard and non-standard, (Miller, 2002).

Morpho-syntactic Deviation
Linguistic levels of the deviation are devided into 8. Leech (1968) decleared those 8 deviation types as follows; lexical, grammatical, phonological, graphological, semantic, dialectical, register, and historical period deviation. Particularly, Leech (1968: 44) pointed out that to differentiate the types of grammatical deviation, it is suggested to start traditionally between morphology (the grammar of words) and syntax (the grammar of word structures within sentences). Therefore, it can be concluded that the words and the word structures within sentences in deviation have their own lines.

C. RESEARCH METHOD
This was a qualitative study that involves seventy participants. Furthermore, the participants consisted of students from various study programs, namely English Literature, Political Sciences, and Technical Information. The participants were randomly taken in 3 from 21 strata one study programs in Universitas Sains Alqur'an Wonosobo. Besides, the study also invited male and female participants as the respondents.
The data were grasped from section two of the TOEFL-Like Test that consists of 40 questions. The provided questions were designed to figure out the structure and written students' competency. Therefore morpho-syntactic deviation could be analyzed. Furthermore, the students' responses were analyzed to maintain the most problematic questions as reflected in their answer sheets. By analyzing their answers, it can measure test-takers' English competency. Therefore, the EFL learners perceive morpho-syntactic aspects that they require to master more.
Following up, questionnaires were given to the respondents to unveil the most common strategies adopted by the students dealing with section two of TOEFL. The items of questionnaires were referred to Phillip (2001). In addition, In this study, the students were provided with TOEFL training before they responded to the questionnaires. They were facilitated by having a TOEFL class in 12 hours. Therefore, it was believed that they could share questionnaire responses appropriately. The class was held in a manner of online to respond new normal situation in Covid 19 outbreak.
The questionnaire was distributed through the Google form application. This technique was administrated to adopt a new normal situation. 52 respondents responded to the questionnaire. The data of questionnaires were collected in the 24th-28th of November 2020.
To drive to the first answer of the objective of the study, the data were then conducted based on particular steps, namely analyzing questions in structure and written expression number per number carefully, analyzing test-takers responses, counting each mistake committed by the test takers, determining types of mistakes conducted by examinees. Then, displaying in the percentage was interpreted to present the prominent problems on the TOEFL prediction test. Lastly, the questionnaire responses were calculated to know the most common strategies applied by the participants in conducting TOEFL Preparation section 2.
While, the second objective of the study was obtained by analyzing questionnaires that involved four-point scales. Those scales were interpreted as (1): always, (2): often, (3): sometimes, and (4): never.

D. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
With respect to morpho-syntactic deviation, this study concerns to explore the deviation made by EFL students in structure and written expression of TOEFL prediction. Therefore, the study provides the problematic patterns of displaying Standard English as reflected in students' answer sheets.
Structure and written expression are considered essential for EFL learners. The learners need to require sufficient knowledge to be able to analyze correct and incorrect morphosyntactic elements in the test of TOEFL section 2. The EFL learners need to raise their awareness regarding mastering morpho-syntactic aspects to succeed in the test of TOEFL.
Concerning structure and written expression, It is helpful to know appropriate strategies and the most common EFL learners difficulties in TOEFL.
As the objectives of this research are to reveal the morpho-syntactic deviation conducted by the EFL learners and the most common strategies applied by them to encounter the deviation in expression of structure and writing in TOEFL, therefore the discussion is separated into two parts.

Findings The Most common morpho-syntactic deviation made by the EFL learners
The following table represents the data grasped from section 2 of TOEFL-Like Test. Adverbial clauses (the need of verb in AVC of time) 40 2 8 Inversion of there verb subject 33 2 9 Object needs (to infinitive of purposes) 50 3 10 Inversion of negative expression (seldom) 53 3 11 Adjective clauses (reduced AC in active meaning) 33 2 12 Object needs (Noun phrases formed from noun of noun  3. Each skill is responded to incorrectly by 54 students (77%). The third most difficult skills faced by the students are inverted subject-verb in negative expression and AC with pronoun subject connector cases. In each skill, 53 (75%) students conduct incorrect responses. Those are the most three occurances that cover six difficult skills faced by the students. To make clear, each problematic skill is elaborated one by one.

Epithet in parallel structures
English has a particular structure to arrange noun phrase forms. Its structure of modification consists of determiner, ordinative, epithet, classifier, and head respectively.
Unfortunately, epithet forms that modify their heads (noun) are often problematic for EFL students. Even though the question has provided clear evidence by displaying a parallel structure, EFL students in Indonesia are often confused to choose the correct answer. The problem is found in the participants' responses as follows.
Paintings of religious, ceremonial, or history character tend to elevate their A B C subjects above the level of ordinary existence.

D
Following the epithet in parallel structure question above, the correct response is A. It should be historical. Epithet is needed to meet two epithets as previous forms, i. e. religious and ceremonial. Epithet or in other words adjective is used to modify character as the head of the noun phrase.

Quantifier-noun agreement
The agreement of quantifier and noun is also often a problem for EFL learners. If the quantifier is flexible, such as lots of, etc, which will not affect its heads, and then the question will not be considered as a problem for EFL learners. It is because flexible quantifiers may modify both countable nouns (singular and plural forms) and uncountable nouns. However, the problem seems to happen if the quantifier forms are not flexible forms, such as a few, a little, many, much, etc. The case is as reflected in the following question.

Why certain plants contain alkaloids remains a mystery, although botanists have
A B C formulated a number of theory to explain it.

D
Following the quantifier-noun agreement above, the correct answer is D. The phrase a number of is a certain expression of quantifiers that implicates to its noun to be in countable plural forms. Therefore, theory as head of the noun phrase should be changed to be theories to agree its modifier.

Pronoun subject connectors of AC
Contemporary film directors, some of them write the scripts for, act in, and even A B produce their own motion pictures, are thereby assuming ever more control of their act.

C D
With regard to an adjective clause case as the item tested above, the correct answer is A.
The verb write in the question needs conjunction subject pronoun instead of pronoun object.
Therefore, the pronoun, them, should be replaced by the conjunction who.

Subject-verb needs
Typically, . . . . . . . in meadows or damp woods and bloom in the spring. As stated by Frank (1972: 220), the sentence should involve a subject and predicate with a finite verb. Therefore, the arrangement of the question above should be Adv. of Manner + S + Therefore, the answer is C because A, B, and D does not correspond to inversion structure correctly.

Discussion
As revealed in the earlier data (table 3), there were three most deviation occurrences in terms of morpho-syntactic deviations. Those three appearances involved six skills of morphosyntactic deviation. These difficulties were experienced by seventy participants. Those six are presented in table 5. Based on table 5, it is uncovered that the most problematic skills are the skills that are involved in questions number 28, 4, 12, 37, 10, and 39 respectively. The findings would likely strengthen Handayani's study (2019) that stated that difficult skills in section 2 of TOEFL faced by EFL learners in higher education involved parallel structure, word order, missing and extra words, singular and plural nouns, etc. Furthermore, she stated that the difficulties faced by the students were due to some factors, such as lack of practice, unfamiliarity with the TOEFL Test, and lack of grammatical competencies. In another research, Ananda (2016) also found that EFL students from state universities had problems in ITP TOEFL section 2. The problems involved inversions, subject-verb agreement, passive, AVC connectors, reduced AC, use of verbs, and parallel structures.
As the previous researches revealed, about morpho-syntactic deviation, the students seemed to assemble inappropriate structures in EFL contexts. Their English writing competence was sometimes grammatically incorrect. The study proposed by Ramadhan, Fauziati, & Suparno (2015) revealed that EFL students viewed overgeneralization. In another research, Rahmanu, Kariati, & Shisido (2020) uncovered that students of Bali State Polytechnic had a very low level of grammatical judgment. The research findings were similar to Rofik's (2020) that revealed that in sense of the EFL context, students of higher education still faced accuracy of grammar. Besides, Kamlasi & Nokas (2017) found that EFL learners conducted the errors of verb, noun, pronoun, adjective, adverb, conjunction, and preposition.

The most common strategies applied dealing with section 2 of TOEFL-like
The following table represents the strategies used to deal with section 2 of the TOEFL-Like Test by EFL students of the pesantren-based university. As revealed in table 4, the data show that the first number of the questionnaire reveals that 48,3% of the students admit that sometimes they concern about the subject-verb agreement. The second questionnaire uncovers that 55,2% of all of the participants often pay attention to the object of the preposition. Then, 39,7% of participants sometimes concern about appositive cases. The data also reveal that 37,9% of students often focus on the cases of present participles. In another statement, 44,8% of them often focus on past participle questions. However, fewer students identify adverbial clause connector usage appropriately. It is proven by 69% of students who sometimes use this strategy. Following up on the use of connectors, 55,2% of students sometimes identify the use of noun clause connectors correctly. Then, 58,6% of test-takers sometimes agree to identify adjective clause connector usage.
Regarding statement number nine, the data uncovers that 51,7% of participants sometimes apply the strategy of identifying the reduced adjective clauses. Then, students who sometimes identify the reduced adverb clauses are 63,9%. With regard to inverted subjectverb in interrogative sentence cases, 56,9% of students sometimes agree to use this strategy.
Next, 44,8% of students often use the strategy of identifying agreement of a verb that is separated by a prepositional phrase to its subject. 41,4% of students also often pay attention to the agreement of verbs to their subjects after quantity expressions. It is also revealed that 50% of students concern to make an inverted verb agrees to its subject. Then, 55,2% of participants focus on parallel structure cases. 60,3% of students admit that they sometimes make correct forms of the degree of comparison. Following this similar case, 70,7% of students sometimes conduct superlative cases appropriately.
Statement number 18 shows that 55,2% of students use the strategy of verb-time expression agreement to tense cases. 63,8% of students also admit that they sometimes put base/bare infinitive (infinitive without to) after modal auxiliary. The students perceive that they need to know how to construct passive sentences. However, mostly (56,9%) admit that they use this strategy sometimes. Then, it is assumed by 41,4% of students that they sometimes need to recognize plural nouns. Last, the data uncovered that the students sometimes recognize the use of adverbs correctly. It is stated by 53,4% of students who point this matter.
The previous data presented that students applied various strategies. The data of strategy items reflected that each student selected a different statement however only five strategies were often used by the respondents. Those were statements number 2, 4, 5, 12, and 13. In this statement, students stated that they often used the strategies involved in those numbers to overcome questions of morpho-syntactic deviation in the TOEFL-Like Test.
Proposing strategies to overcome the TOEFL-Like Test section two are highly required to encourage the students to know further key elements in dealing with the section. This study likely strengthens Handayani's research (2019) revealing that unfamiliar with the TOEFL test presented awkwardness for the test takers of TOEFL. Moreover, Rofik, Christina, & Atinia (2020) revealed that EFL students endured section two as the hardest one in the TOEFL-Like Test.

E. CONCLUSION
TOEFL administrated as a tool of measurement to know the proficiency level is commonly tested for the university students. Since TOEFL is perceived as very important, students need to know their problems. Therefore, they know what morpho-syntactic elements they need to master to achieve an appropriate English proficiency level. Furthermore, this research found the common morpho-syntactic deviation made in the TOEFL-Like Test. As revealed in the finding, the most common problems faced were epithet in parallel structure, subject-verb needs, object needs in noun phrase forms, quantifier-noun agreement, inversion of negative expression, connector subject pronoun in AC.
To sum up the second objective of the study, the findings also found that the strategies applied by the students were varied. Furthermore, there were five strategies that EFL learners often would likely to apply. Those were concerning objects of preposition cases, present participle problems, past participle questions, subject-verb agreement in cases of prepositional phrases, and subject-verb agreement in a case of quantity expression.
Following up the research findings, this study would likely give a beneficial suggestion for succeeding researchers who want to research the TOEFL. The research could take similar topics with different focuses, such as the relationship between the strategies applied by the test takers toward the results of the TOEFL Test. Such kind of research is believed could give further findings that are limited in this study. Concerning EFL learners, they could be more careful to face section two of the TOEFL-Like Test.