The importance of Reading Comprehension for CAT cannot be overstated.

It
is probably the highest scoring section in the CAT paper. If your RC skills
are good you can score like mad in that section. Also keep in mind that the
CAT paper will probably run for 30+ pages. If you are a poor reader it would
take you about 2 hours just to read the questions, forget about answering
them. Good RC skills are the key to belling the CAT. So how can one improve
his/her RC skills? Only by regular and sustained reading of quality
material.
All of us read only the subjects that interest us. However the CAT has
passages from diverse subjects ranging from economics to engineering.
In other words, just about anything under the sun. Thus the first hurdle to
overcome is one's bias against particular subjects. One has to consciously
work on developing interest in whatever he/she is reading. One should try to
read at least 3-4 quality articles a day. Some good sources are:

Newspapers: Probably the richest source. Most of us take them for

granted and don't realise how valuable they are. I would recommend reading
a good national newspaper daily. The best would be "The Hindu". It has
the best articles in terms of language if not in terms of content. A
close second would be "Indian Express". Its language is more down-toearth than Hindu's but has awesome content. I am not terribly impressed
with "Times of India" and the like. I would personally advise you to avoid
them. They are tabloids published for the sole noble purpose of educating
the average Indian about the glitterati and the chatterati. And when you are
reading the newspapers don't stop with the sports page alone. Go through
the whole paper and make sure you read the center page fully. In particular
pay attention to the editorials. Do this for one month and you will observe
how better a reader you have become. Keep doing this for the next six
months

Magazines: Subscribe to one good weekly newsmagazine and one

business magazine. I used to read the Outlook and Businessworld regularly.

The best magazine for CAT prep would be the Frontline but I personally
found it to be too boring. Way too boring. But it's awesome if you can
stomach it!

Non-Fiction: Most articles that appear in the CAT are picked from non-

fiction books. Suggested areas are Management, Science, Philosophy,

Religion, Sports, Self-help, Biographies and Autobiographies of eminent
personalities. Some good books/articles that I read:
What They Don't Teach You At Harvard Business School - Mark
McCormack
A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
Made In Japan - Akio Morito
The road ahead - Bill Gates
Business@the speed of thought - Bill Gates
Competing for the future - C.K.Prahlad
Swami Vivekananda's works
Harvard Business Review articles
Businessworld magazine's case studies

Fiction: Try to avoid mainstream pulp fiction writers. Instead try to go in

for better quality fiction like Salman Rushdie, Naipaul, Erich Segal, Ayn
Rand, Arundhati Roy, Tolkien, Lustbader. Frankly some of these authors
are acutely irritating. But reading something you dislike is more useful
than reading something you love

Comics: Ditch them!

Reading Speed
It's also very important to have a good reading speed. My reading speed was
one of my biggest strengths. When I started my reading speed was about
400 words per minute in the Hindu editorials. I was able to push it up
to 600 wpm. When reading make a conscious effort to read faster. Also try
to increase your eye span while reading. Eye span means the number of
words one can read at one go. For poor readers it is just one or two words
at a time. For great readers it is seven to eight words in one go. Newspaper
columns offer good practice. Try to comprehend a line at a time and the eyes
should only move vertically down and not horizontally.