This study aims to invetigate the effect of Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) approach to the learning motivation and problem solving skills. This study is a quasi experiment, inwhich the pre-test and post-test was involved in the design setting. The population scoped all the 10th-grade students of SMA 3 in Binjai where X-MIA1 and X-MIA2 were chosen as the experimental and control classe in which each class consists of 36 students. The instruments used in this study invloved questionnaire about students™ learning motivation and the test of problem solving skills. The percentage of learning motivation in experiment class where the RME averaged 50% and 92,38%; while the mean of problem solving skills of the experiment class ranged 51,27 and 81,75 before and after the classroom implementation. The hypotehsis test of this study used the r-test. The result shows that the rtest of the students™ learning motivation from the experiment class is 0,87 while rtable = 0,329, thus rtest > rtable. Furthermore, the resuls of problem solving skills yields rtest = 0,77 and rtable = 0,329 which implies rtest > rtable.
