CAT (VARC) PYQs

The passage explains how social outcomes generally follow normal distributions. So, extreme events are negligible, and policy should stabilise averages rather than learn from large shocks in fast-changing collective settings.

The passage explains how speculative entrants always produce inefficiency after health shocks. Therefore, long-term investors invariably profit when new participants push prices away from fundamentals under pandemic conditions and comparable crises.

The passage explains how nonstationarity works in evolutionary biology and rejects applications in markets or public health because adaptation is exclusive to parasite-host systems and cannot arise in technology-mediated social dynamics.

The passage explains how noise can create order, then shows why complex systems with contagion are vulnerable to heavy-tailed cascades. It also explains why early shocks change rules through nonstationarity with a market illustration during the COVID-19 disruption.