Logistics of taking notes for RC?

This is a very common question. Veritas recommends, and I agree, that you either take no notes or short notes for each paragraph. My preference is heavily weighted toward short notes, but taking too many notes is the worst idea because you will utilize excessive time on the first read of the passage.

In RC, the first read through is a high level "skim" to get you familiarized with the passage. After your initial read, you should be able to answer all universal questions that pertain to the entire passage (e.g. primary purpose questions) and have an idea of what areas of the passage to return to in order to answer more detailed questions. The brief notes should be 5-7 words long, abbreviated, and taken after each paragraph on the laminated pad of paper that you will have. So for example, here are my notes for a pretend scientific passage about mitosis & meiosis, as well as the notes' meanings in parentheses (I would not write this part on the test):

1) Mit/mei desc, purp's (An introduction and description of mitosis & meiosis, and explanation of the purposes they serve)
2) Mit proc, bens (The scientific proc of mitosis and the benefits that result)
3) Mei proc, bens (The scientific proc of meiosis and the benefits that result)
4) Comp/cont proc (a compare/contrast paragraph about the two processes, discussing their similarities and differences)

Veritas does a great job of discussing what to do next to approach reading comprehension very efficiently, using their STOP methodology. This is a very simple example that I have demonstrated, but it should give you the right idea of how to approach note-taking on RC passages.

I hope this helps!