<![CDATA[This quasi-experimental study aims to describe eighth grade students' reading comprehension of descriptive texts at SMP Negeri 1 Angkola Barat prior to the use of authentic advertisement materials, to measure the significance of the effect of using advertisements as authentic materials on reading comprehension, and to determine the extent of improvement in students' reading comprehension following the treatment. The study used a pretest-posttest non-equivalent control group design with 59 students as the sample: Class VIII-A (n=29) served as the experimental group taught using authentic advertisement materials, while Class VIII-B (n=30) served as the control group taught through conventional methods. Reading comprehension was measured using a 20-item multiple-choice test covering four indicators: identifying the main idea, identifying specific information, understanding vocabulary in context, and making simple inferences. Data were analyzed using the Shapiro-Wilk test, Levene's test, Paired Sample T-Test, and Independent Sample T-Test via SPSS. The experimental group's mean score rose from 51.38 to 81.38 (+30.00 points), while the control group improved by only 20.83 points (45.00 to 65.83). The Independent Sample T-Test yielded a significance value of 0.000 (p 0.05), confirming a statistically significant effect. The findings suggest that authentic advertisement materials effectively improve students' reading comprehension and should be considered as an alternative teaching medium in EFL classrooms.]]>
