Some tips for cracking Reading Comprehension (RC) section

Reading Comprehension (RC) is one of the most feared sections of the CAT paper, many aspirants fear it because it takes time to read the passage and inference answers to the questions, but mind you RCs are one of the most scoring sections in CAT exams
Verbal Ability is something that you can only improve gradually with time, one needs to do a lot of practise to get a hang of how to read, comprehend, analyse and inference answers for the questions given with the passages

Let us divide our discussion into 3 phases.

Phase 1

If you are new to RCs and want to improve upon it, at this phase, understanding the passage is more important than speed, accuracy in solving questions etc. Start by dividing the passage by concentrating para by para, now after reading each paragraph; write 2 lines of summary in your notebook, so that you remember what you read. Do it for all paragraphs and finally look into the questions, you will find that the lines you wrote captures most of the answers to the questions. Also because you wrote those lines, you remember the passage, or can locate the answers in the passage. Practise more and more, till find yourself at Phase 2

Phase 2

As you gradually progress from phase 1, you reach phase 2, at this phase, you no longer need to write lines of summary, but now just underline, what you feel is important in each paragraph, or may write some key words at the side /bottom of the Para which gives the essence of the entire paragraph. Some of the words which you may find difficult to comprehend try convert the sentence in the language you are comfortable with, let say Hindi, and treat that word as the missing link and inference its meaning

Phase 3

As you practise more, you no longer need to read each and every Para in detail but rather speedily scan through the entire passage, while underlining important lines or writing a few key words, you just need to know from where you can locate the answers in the passage.
For answering questions on understanding the tone of the passage or, views about the author , your important lines and the key words together will give you good clue in the understanding the same

Remember RCs need lot of practice, continuous efforts to improve, but once you get requisite skill sets, you can crack most of the RCs. Whether small or big, whether direct or abstract. This skill will not only help you now, but also while pursuing your MBA, where one needs to read , comprehend and analyze 50-60 pages daily

Hope the post is useful to you , for more queries , questions , comments , do write in the comments section