The Reading Comprehension part of the Verbal Ability section requires a good skill over the English language and comprehending. Questions on Reading Comprehension is a compulsory part of CAT. In order to improve on your Reading Comprehension and Verbal Ability section for CAT 2011 you need to broaden your background knowledge by reading newspapers, magazines and books.

Strategies for making it easier:

There are various difficulties which you might face while attempting the questions on Reading Comprehension in CAT. For that, we will offer you the strategies for CAT preparations.
The strategies for the CAT as mentioned by the TestGenie.com experts are as follows:

Read a lot:

Reading is the key for this part of CAT exam. Reading helps as you get to know about a lot of topics and that increases your general knowledge as well.

Apart from reading a lot, what you should practice for CAT is Speed Reading. Speed Reading will help you to comprehend the passage faster and hence score better in the Reading Comprehension passages for your CAT Preparations.

1. Focus on three to four main words in a sentence.
2. Time your reading speed and decrease the time you take to read gradually.
3. Identify main parts of the paragraph.
4. You can mark the important points/words/sentences in the beginning but gradually you should be able to identify these without marking them.
5. While reading, move your eyes fast from left to right, focusing on main words.
6. After finishing an article, write the gist of that. This will help you know how much you remember of that passage.

Improving speed to solve Reading Comprehension:

Reading comprehension requires motivation, mental frameworks for holding ideas, concentration and good study techniques. Here are some suggestions.

• Write a summary of about 100 to 150 words every day on the editorial as it will help in building thought process. Make a note of the difficult words and find their meanings from a Standard English dictionary. Try and maintain notebook/prepare flash cards that you can go through in your free time.
• Develop a broad background
  Broaden your background knowledge by reading newspapers, magazines and books. Become interested in world events.
• Know the structure of paragraphs
  Good writers construct paragraphs that have a beginning, middle and end. Often, the first sentence will give an overview that helps provide a framework for adding details. Also, look for transitional words, phrases or paragraphs that change the topic.
• Create motivation and interest
  Preview material, ask questions, discuss ideas with classmates. The stronger your interest, the greater your comprehension.
• Pay attention to supporting cues
  Study pictures, graphs and headings. Read the first and last paragraph in a chapter, or the first sentence in each section.
• Highlight, summarize and review
  Just reading a book once is not enough. To develop a deeper understanding, you have to highlight, summarize and review important ideas.
• Build a good vocabulary
  For most educated people, this is a lifetime project. The best way to improve your vocabulary is to use a dictionary regularly. You might carry around a pocket dictionary and use it to look up new words. Or, you can keep a list of words to look up at the end of the day. Concentrate on roots, prefixes and endings. Going through word-of-the-day of CAT4MBA will definitely help you in this regard.

Expert Tip: “It has generally found that reading quickly help in comprehending better, so probably quick reading say 350 word per minute will be quite good for CAT”