영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Stairs seem too ① ordinary to be dangerous, which is why many people treat them carelessly, texting, carrying an armful of books, or skipping two steps at a time. Emergency room records tell a ② different story: falls on stairways send more people to the hospital each year than almost any other household accident. Familiarity ③ discourages a kind of autopilot mode, in which a person stops looking at each step and instead relies on memory of where the stairs should be, a habit that fails the moment something ④ unexpected occurs, such as a missing step or a loose railing. Safety officials recommend a few ⑤ unglamorous habits: keep one hand free, use the handrail, and turn on the light before stepping onto a dark staircase.

Every July, our school library launches a summer reading challenge that invites students to read at least five books before classes begin again in September. Students who complete the challenge receive a small prize, but many say the real reward is something else entirely. Without daily homework and tests to worry about, summer gives students rare freedom to choose books purely because they sound interesting, not because a teacher assigned them. Librarians believe that _______________, since students who only cared about winning the prize tend to quit once the reading feels difficult, while curious readers keep going.

Speed-reading courses promise a simple result: read several times faster while understanding just as much as before. Some students do learn to move their eyes faster after a short course. However, researchers who study reading have found a serious problem with these claims. Understanding a text depends not just on how quickly your eyes move across it, but on how deeply your brain processes each sentence and connects new ideas to what you already know. In careful studies, speed-reading graduates often score no better on comprehension tests than ordinary readers who read at a normal pace. This suggests that _______________.

Students who read many books across many different subjects often develop a habit that quieter learners sometimes lack: the habit of comparing new information with what they already know. (A) A student who has read about ancient wars, ocean ecosystems, and modern economics can more easily notice when two different subjects share a similar pattern. (B) This kind of connection-making is closely related to what psychologists call critical thinking, since seeing a familiar pattern in an unfamiliar topic allows a person to ask sharper questions instead of accepting new information at face value. (C) Extensive reading also builds a large mental library of examples, and teachers often notice that widely read students argue more carefully, supporting their opinions with specific examples rather than vague generalizations.

Around elementary schools, bright yellow signs mark what is known as a school zone, an area where drivers are required to slow down to reduce the risk of striking a child who might dart into the street without warning. (A) A car traveling even ten kilometers per hour slower gives a driver several extra seconds to brake, often the exact difference between a frightening near miss and a tragedy. (B) Some drivers complain that the reduced speed limit wastes their time, especially when no children happen to be visible at that moment. (C) This complaint misses an important fact about how children behave near traffic: young students often lack the judgment to predict how far a car will travel before it can stop.

When temperatures drop below freezing overnight, an invisible layer of black ice can form on sidewalks that look perfectly dry, catching even careful walkers off guard. (A) Walking with shorter, flatter steps and keeping the hands free rather than in pockets can help a person regain balance quickly if a foot suddenly slides. (B) Orthopedic doctors report a sharp rise in wrist and hip injuries every winter, most of them caused not by dramatic slips on icy hills but by a single unexpected step near a bus stop or a doorway. (C) Unlike a visibly icy patch, black ice reflects almost no light and blends into ordinary pavement, which is why so many falls happen on stretches that pedestrians would never suspect.

For many students, the walk to school feels so routine that safety becomes an afterthought, yet a surprising number of accidents occur within a few blocks of the school gate. (A) Wearing dark clothing during these hours can make a student almost invisible until a car is dangerously close. (B) This shortcut becomes especially risky during the darker months, when a driver's ability to spot a pedestrian drops sharply well before sunrise or after sunset. (C) Part of the danger comes from convenience: students often cut across a busy street rather than walking the extra minute to the nearest crosswalk, assuming they can judge the traffic gap correctly.

주어진 문장: In contrast, turning off the tap during that time saves a surprising amount of water each day. Water looks endless when it flows from the tap every morning. ① However, clean water is actually a limited resource that we must protect carefully. Many families waste water without even noticing it in their daily routine. For example, leaving the tap running while brushing your teeth can waste several liters of water. ② Taking a shorter shower is another easy habit that reduces water use significantly. ③ Fixing a leaking faucet, which many people ignore, can also save hundreds of liters every month. ④ Saving water is like keeping money in a savings account for the future. Therefore, small changes in our daily habits, practiced by every family, can protect this precious resource. ⑤ Everyone who cares about the environment should start saving water today.

주어진 문장: In other words, the paper completely loses its original shape and becomes a soft, wet mixture. Every day, people throw away piles of used paper without thinking about where it goes. ① However, most of that paper does not have to end up in a landfill. Instead, it can travel to a recycling factory and become brand new paper again. ② First, workers collect old newspapers, boxes, and notebooks left in recycling bins. These papers are then soaked in water and turned into soft, mushy pulp. ③ You can think of this process like breaking a cookie back into flour and water. For example, ink and small pieces of plastic are removed from the pulp during this stage. ④ The clean pulp is pressed into thin sheets and dried in large machines. Therefore, a wrinkled old newspaper can be reborn as clean white paper. ⑤ In contrast to throwing paper away, recycling it saves trees and reduces waste.

In their view, reading a caption or a text message still counts as reading, even if it looks very different from reading a novel. Many teachers and parents worry that today's teenagers are losing the ability to read long, complex texts. ( ① ) National test scores show a slow decline in reading comprehension over the past ten years, and some experts blame smartphones and short videos for shortening students' attention spans. ( ② ) Other researchers disagree with this simple explanation. ( ③ ) They point out that teenagers today read constantly, just in different forms, such as text messages, captions, and online articles. ( ④ ) According to this view, the real problem is not that students read less overall, but that they rarely practice reading long passages without any interruption. ( ⑤ ) A team of researchers recently found that students who read at least one full book every month scored noticeably higher on comprehension tests than students who mainly read short online posts, which suggests that the format of reading, rather than simple screen time, may be the more important factor behind the changing scores.