The limitation of frequency and duration of English classes at Graduate Program especially at MM UHAMKA inspires this research. The language learning strategies specifically Cognitive Strategies and Comprehension Strategies are exposed in this research to describe how the students learn the language. SILL (Strategy Inventory of Language Learning) instrument adapted from Oxford (1996) was used to get the information about the strategy employed by the students. The result of the research shows that some cognitive strategies skimming (item 18), searching for similarities (item 19) item 20 and 22 were rarely used by the student. Almost seventy percent of them employs compensation strategies, yet item 25, 26, and 29 stated "if can't think of an English word, I use a word or phrase that means the same thing.", should be strengthened. More over it is found that there is a correlation between the number of cognitive strategy used in the learning process and the students English achievement (r=0.93) as well as compensation strategy and English achievement.