This is a dedicated section for all the posts put up by 2IIM @ Wordpandit. We have partnered with the leader in test-prep to bring a series of useful posts and content that are going to take your CAT prep to the next level.
Reading Comprehension questions (and the rest of the questions in the verbal ability section) in CAT are about testing Reading Ability. They test how well a candidate has understood the ideas presented in the passage. The only sound strategy that works for RCs is reading as much as possible. This seems bleeding obvious, but it is often overlooked by denizens who spend time on vocabulary-building or on becoming a grammar Nazi.
Being a habitual reader gives you the stamina to go through multiple passages without getting tired and have clarity about the ideas presented in the passage.
To note how particularly vital the Reading habit is for CAT and how one should prepare for Reading Comprehension, view the following video from Swaminathan, IIMA 2016-2018. This video provides a fabulous outline of how to prepare for this most important section.
The first step to build a reading habit is to find some good reading material. We went ahead and prepared an exhaustive reading list to prepare for RCs in CAT. In this article, we have given a curated list of books to read, with a brief review of each book. Our favourite section is the one where we outline a set of books for beginners. To quote the article –
“for folks who haven’t managed to read beyond 5 novels in their lifetime and can recall with excruciating detail the extent of pain they faced in finishing those 5 bl00dy novels. The defining metric for book-selection for this group is unputdownability. Style, language, richness of prose, plot depth etc. be damned. There needs to be enough meat in each page for one to flip over to the next. Everything else can come later.”
When picking a reading list, it probably helps to keep this sentence from the article in mind “I would strongly recommend readers to ignore this at any point of time and pick up books that catch their fancy and try them. Putting tick next to a reading list is the worst approach to follow towards reading.”
Books are not your thing? You cannot last more than 1000 words? Go through a set of websites, blogs and articles. We present another curated list here
In this article, we provide a curated list of good sources categorized by topic, field, style etc.
If going through a set of websites is not your thing; you want to be taken to the pond and fed the water as well. You are among those who wants to be given a very specific set of articles to read, then do the following. Visit FB group. Become member, click #RC100 and read.
