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READING
COMPREHENSION

Introduction
Feared by students more than Mondays, Reading comprehension is a test of
your ability to read and understand unfamiliar materials and to answer
questions about them. In reading comprehension, you will be given a
passage (or let us say a set of passages) to read, which will be like an excerpt
from a serious discussion of a topic from the natural sciences, the social
sciences, or a business–related field. You’ll then have to answer a group of
questions about the passage, testing how well you’ve understood its content.
So far so good!
Reading Comprehension (RC) makes one of the major test–areas in almost all
entrance tests. In the CAT the weightage RC is roughly 50% of the Verbal
Ability section. Even in the English Usage Section, more than half the
questions (for example, theme based questions) can be solved fast and
correctly only if one is good at RC. The weightage and the toughness level of
RC vary from test to test. RC in the CAT is the stiffest ordeal. Earlier there
generally were 5– 6 passages with the average length of a passage being 600–
800 words. Now the number of passages has come down to four, but the
passages are abstract and most of the questions are inference based. Also the
passages are from very diverse fields of interest. It is generally seen that
students who are voracious readers (fiction/non fiction/general/specific
etc.) always have an edge over others who are not given to extensive
reading.

Why this Ordeal of Reading Comprehension in CAT?

Reading comprehension, as they say, is designed to measure your ability to
handle the varied kinds of sophisticated, complex, and subtle reading that
graduate business students are called upon to do. You won’t right now
believe the amount of material you would have to go through as a manager.
Reading Comprehension prepares you for just that. But work is work! To top it
all, in order to answer the questions it’s not enough to understand the basic
facts presented in the passage; you also need to notice the more elusive
inferences in the passage (that is, ideas that are suggested rather than directly
stated) as well as the form, structure, and style of the passage (that is, how
the author has chosen to present his/her ideas).
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Reading Practice
You are not expected to use any information other than the ideas – explicit or
implicit – of the passage. You should confine yourself only to the passage. In
the long run, the best approach would be to read books widely and
extensively and articles of all kinds. Reading the editorials in standard
newspapers will be of good support. Speed, stamina and the power to
comprehend the printed word will consequently improve.
READ, READ & READ!!!!
You will have to develop the skill to read the passage fast and with
concentration so as to intuitively spot the main theme or thrust of the
passage, supporting facts and arguments. This can come only with a good
knowledge of English, and a critical approach with sustained practice. While
examining the answer choices, you will have to pay attention to the language
as well as their import.

The Purpose of Reading: The purpose of reading is to connect the ideas in

the passage to what you already know. If you don't know anything about a
subject, then pouring words of text into your mind is like pouring water into
your hand. You don't retain much. For example, try reading these numbers:
7516324 This is hard to read and remember.
751–6324 This is easier because of chunking.
123–4567 This is easy to read because of prior knowledge and
structure.
Similarly, if you like sport, then reading the sports page is easy. You have a
framework in your mind for reading, understanding and storing information.

Key Point: Good reading means building frameworks for connecting

words to thoughts.

Nitty–Gritties of Reading Comprehension

There are three elements of Reading Comprehension to be considered:
(A) Comprehension or Understanding
(B) Speed
(C) Application/Correlation

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Toolkit Improving Comprehension

Try talking to a person who is relatively good at RC. More often than not it
will turn out that s/he has been fond of reading and has possibly read
hundreds of good books other than the normally prescribed text books for
routine studies. Avid readers invariably turn out to be inherently good at
cracking RC – this applies even to those that might have been reading
basically fiction. What could explain this? The most likely reasons are that
such persons are not put off by lengthy and even abstract reading, have
better and longer concentration and have also learnt to read speedily with
good retention. Besides the general awareness level of such persons is also
higher as they have gained a lot of awareness through reading.
You can also increase our comprehension, retention and speed the same way.
Diversified reading, i.e. reading of diversified topics will help you in at least
three ways
• It will improve your RC as stated and also increase your comfort
level with different RC topics.
• It will improve your vocabulary, as different subjects use different
vocabulary
• It will enrich your oral and written expression through the
storehouse of ideas gained through such reading.
Quite an arduous task but that is the way it goes!!! And it is never too late to
get started.

Sticking to the Purpose of Reading

Another point to be kept in mind is that the reading of an RC passage is for a
specific purpose that is to answer the questions correctly. When you go
through an RC passage, you have to keep two things in mind, viz. the main
point of discussion (what the author is driving at) and any ancillary
information that will help answer specific questions. So within the limited
time available, you ought to be looking for the grain rather than the chaff.
Half the passage or more may be irrelevant for your purpose. If you cannot
skip it totally, try to speed through it with minimum fuss.

Key Point: Please do not try to enjoy a passage or gain knowledge out of
it in an exam. You have the rest of your lives to do that and there are
better ways of committing suicide.

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS REGARDING RC FOR

‘CAT’

1. What is the subject of the passages that we get for RC?

The passages in any Reading Comprehension would deal with the following
subjects:
1. Biological Sciences (Biochemistry, Botany, Medicine, Microbiology,
Pharmacy, Zoology, etc.)
2. Humanities (Art, Cinema, Literature, Music etc.)
3. Physical Sciences (Astronomy, Astrophysics, Chemistry,
Environmental Sciences, Geology, Mathematics, Physics etc.)
4. Social Sciences (Anthropology, Philosophy – and this one is a favorite
- Business, Economics, Education, History, Politics, Psychology, Public
Administration, Sociology, etc.)
Each of these subjects has its own language.

2. How much time do we spend on reading the passage?

The goal is to spend no more than 3–4 minutes "reading" the entire
passage. Just remember that you don't get any points for reading the
passages.

The Reading in Reading Comprehension

Reading a passage in a Reading Comprehension test is like a drive through a
strange city. The main idea of the passage is like the overall plan of the city;
the main idea of each paragraph is like the plan of the locality through which
you are driving. Reading the passage is like driving quickly through the city.
You do not waste time memorizing every detail of every locality; you just
develop a general sense of the layout of the city.

It is general assumed that all the information in the passage is important to

answer the questions correctly, but this isn't true. The questions against an
RC passage cover only a small fraction of the passage. You have to identify
the important parts and ignore most of the rest. The less time you spend
reading the passage, the more time you'll have for gaining the score.
Broadly speaking here are two types of questions in Reading Comprehension
and neither requires you to memorize specific information:

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1. General questions: To answer these, you need to have an

understanding of the main idea and, perhaps, the structure of the
passage.
2. Specific questions: Since you'll be asked about only a few specific
pieces of information, it makes sense only to have a vague idea of
where the specific information is located in the passage. That way
you'll know where to look for it if you need it.

Key Point: You get points for answering questions NOT for reading the
passage.

3. Which passages are to be attempted out of the RC and

which of these are to be attempted first?
This is a question that often intrigues an MBA aspirant, particularly if
there are a number of passages to be attempted? Let us try analyzing
what to attempt and based on which criteria:
Length of the passage
Accept it or not, this is generally the first thing all of us consider. One
always tends to prefer a smaller passage to a longer one. (Who
wouldn’t prefer a 1 – page RC to a 3 – page RC?)

Number of questions
The more the number of questions to be attempted, the higher is the
probability of you actually attempting more questions.

Type of questions
An analysis during practice of which questions are you comfortable
attempting & most often get correct would tell you which kinds of
questions should you attempt. More the number of those kinds of
questions in a passage, better it is for you to attempt that particular
passage.

Subject of the Passage

It is always advisable for you to attempt a passage based on the
Caution subject you are acquainted with as the jargon there won’t baffle you.
But please don’t delve into the details of a subject of your knowledge.
This will increase the time you take. Remember, there are better ways
to commit suicide.

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Use a combination of all these points to choose the passage(s) for

yourself.

4. Should we attempt all the passages/all the questions?

Related with the above question is a set of others. Should we
attempt?
All Questions of All the Passages (AQAP)
All Questions of Some Passages (AQSP)
Some Questions of All Passages (SQAP)
Some Questions of Some Passages (SQSP)
Before we answer this set of questions, we ought to know that CAT is a
Test of accuracy and speed. RCs are essentially time taking. Even after
devoting a lot of time, students are not sure whether they got the right
answers. In any case, time is a precious resource in the CAT
examination. So the students should
• attempt all the questions of all the passages (AQAP) only where
they find Easy Passages – Easy Questions (EPEQ)
• attempt some questions of all/some passages, where they find
Easy Passages – Difficult Questions (EPDQ)
• attempt all questions of some (easy) passages (AQSP) if they face
an odd very difficult passage

5. Should we read the passage first or the other way

round?
Ways to Tackle the Questions.
I. Reading pattern passage followed by questions: Reading the passage
first and then attacking the questions.
Passage Æ Questions
Tips & Traps:
Sometimes in the process, you might spend a lot of time
comprehending those parts of passage which aren’t important i.e. on
which no questions are asked so beware.

II. Questions followed by passage: Reading the questions followed by

reading the passage.
Questions Æ Passage

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Tips & Traps:

The pitfall here might be that you read Q1 and look for the answer in
the passage. Then you read Q2 and search for its answer and so on.
Very human to do so! So, for 6 questions you might end up reading the
passage at least 4 times if not more. This means wastage of time.
III. Passage and Questions simultaneously
Reading two paragraphs and attempting the questions pertaining to
them and so on.
Passage Æ Questions
Tips & Traps:
This may not lead you anywhere.
IV So, a little safer strategy is.
Question stems
↓
Passage Reading
↓
Question solving
The above strategy works!
P.S.: Attempting a passage is a very relative process. Therefore, try
working on all these strategies and see what suits you the best.

6. Should we underline while we read?

Although we advise students to avoid use of a pen or pencil that runs
alongside words, for it hinders speed, a pen/pencil is handy for
marking the important points in the passage. While the students are
skimming the passage, they should make it a point to underline if and
when they come across any phrase/point that they consider very
important. This is true particularly where the students have gone
through the questions and have a fair idea of what is required of them.
Later on, while answering the questions, the students will not need to
go through the detail, and can the required information from the
underlined part(s) only.

A word of caution! Care should be taken to avoid underlining each

and everything in the passage. Everything important means nothing is
important. As a thumb rule, the number of words underlined should
never exceed 5% of the total number of words in the passage. Also
what are to be underlined are the ideas in the form of short phrases,
not the detailed statements.

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7. When do we know that we have the right answer?

The Best Strategy is to arrive at the correct answer through a Process
of Elimination (POE) of the wrong answers based on the traps that the
examiner has set for you.

8. Can we answer the questions based on our prior

knowledge of the topic?
Strictly, NO. Prior knowledge may help you to get a grip of the topic.
But this should not come in way of the requirement to answer the
questions based entirely on the information furnished in the passage.
Be sure to work within the context of the passage. Your own views or
opinions may sometimes conflict with the views expressed in the
passage.

However, you will often be able to eliminate some of the answer

choices simply on the basis of commonsense, which you will be called
upon to use in ample measure.

TIP
A number of different reading strategies are tested by multiple–choice
questions. Some are straightforward comprehension questions where you
are expected to identify stated information. Others require you to read
between the lines and infer the writer’s meaning, which may be expressed
indirectly. Yet others ask you to identify and interpret opinions and the
writer’s attitude. The final questions in the series are often designed to test
understanding of overall meaning.

The multiple–choice question may therefore be more complex than it appears

and in all cases requires a close reading of the text. The incorrect options or
distracters in the multiple–choice question can be of several types.

– untrue or contrary to what is stated in the text

– not mentioned in the text (although they may be true)
– only partially true
– true but irrelevant to the question

The correct option will be the only one which is entirely true for a given text
and relevant to the question.

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