RC scores are very highly regarded at some schools, and I doubt any schools would overlook them entirely. RC is a quick glance at how well you can read/retain/compute information. Primarily, the goal is to pick out the important stuff, or remember where the important stuff was on the page.
Also, RC shows adcoms that if you don't know information, you are at least adept in finding it. I don't know everything about the science world (I'm an English major) -- but give me a book and I can find the important stuff quickly.
RC for me was all about knowing the main topic/key words in each paragraph. My test asked specific questions about specific paragraphs, and only a couple of questions about the article in general. Because of this, I found it unnecessary to actually read the articles -- I skimmed them at best.
There are a lot of good techniques for this section. Try a couple and find one that works for you, then perfect it. I finished up the section with about 25 minutes to spare, and scored in the 99 %ile. I must have missed a question somewhere, which really pisses me off 😉 .