영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

To ①compensate for their carbon emissions, many individuals and companies now purchase carbon offsets, financial credits that fund projects such as planting trees or building renewable energy plants. The idea is ②unappealing: paying for an equivalent amount of carbon to be absorbed elsewhere should cancel out the harm caused by activities like flying. However, critics argue that this system often functions as a convenient excuse for postponing ③genuine emission cuts rather than achieving them. For example, a newly planted forest may take decades to absorb the promised carbon, and it could later burn down or be cut, erasing any benefit. Moreover, some offset projects would have happened anyway, meaning the credits fund nothing truly ④additional. Experts insist that offsetting should complement, not replace, direct reductions in fossil fuel use if the strategy is to remain ⑤credible.

When people consistently sleep too little, the body's hormonal balance shifts in ways that can ①quietly encourage weight gain. Two hormones in particular play ②opposing roles in regulating appetite: leptin signals fullness to the brain, while ghrelin stimulates the sensation of hunger. Studies show that sleep deprivation lowers leptin levels while raising ghrelin levels, so a tired body ends up feeling ③fuller than it actually needs to be, even after a normal-sized meal. At the same time, insufficient sleep interferes with how efficiently the body processes glucose, making cells less ④responsive to insulin and leaving more sugar circulating in the bloodstream than usual. Over months or years, this combination of increased appetite and reduced insulin sensitivity can contribute to steady weight gain and raise the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Because these effects build up so ⑤gradually, many people never connect their shifting eating habits or worsening blood sugar to something as ordinary as a few lost hours of sleep each night.

The framing effect describes how people respond differently to the same information depending on how it is presented, even when the underlying facts remain unchanged. When news outlets describe climate change primarily as a looming ①crisis, filled with images of disasters and warnings of irreversible damage, audiences often react with ②confidence or, paradoxically, with hopeless resignation. In contrast, when the same issue is framed as an ③opportunity, emphasizing innovative technologies and emerging green jobs, readers tend to feel more ④motivated to act and support policy change. Neither framing alone tells the complete story, since climate change genuinely involves both serious risks and promising solutions. Therefore, journalists who rely too heavily on either extreme risk distorting public understanding and discouraging meaningful engagement. A ⑤balanced approach, which honestly presents dangers while highlighting realistic paths forward, is far more likely to sustain long-term public attention and inspire lasting action.

Feed an AI music program a mood, a tempo, and a rough genre, and within seconds it can generate a complete instrumental track. The software has studied thousands of existing songs, learning which chord progressions and rhythms tend to sound pleasant together, and it recombines these patterns into something new. For independent creators who cannot afford a composer, this has been a genuine breakthrough. Professional musicians, however, remain divided. Some welcome the tool as a quick way to sketch ideas before refining them by hand, while others worry that _______________.

Sleep is not a single, uniform state but a cycle that alternates between two very different modes: REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and non-REM sleep. During non-REM sleep, especially its deepest stage, the brain waves slow down dramatically, the body temperature drops, and tissue repair and growth hormone release reach their peak. This is the period most closely associated with physical restoration. REM sleep, by contrast, brings rapid eye movements, near-total muscle paralysis, and brain activity that closely resembles wakefulness. Most vivid dreaming occurs during this stage, and researchers believe _______________. A healthy night typically cycles through both stages four or five times, with non-REM dominating the early hours and REM periods lengthening toward morning. Disrupting either stage, through frequent awakenings or alcohol use, can leave a person feeling unrested even after a full night in bed.

Browsing an online store today often means chatting with an AI assistant that asks a few quick questions before suggesting a short list of products tailored to the answers. Retailers report that shoppers who use these chatbots tend to complete purchases more often and return fewer items, since the guided conversation helps buyers choose products that actually fit their needs. Some shoppers, however, remain wary of how personal the questions can feel, wondering _______________. Consumer advocates argue that stores should clearly explain what happens to this data, rather than burying the explanation in a lengthy privacy policy that almost no one reads.

Melatonin is a hormone produced by a small gland deep within the brain, and its release follows a remarkably predictable daily pattern. (A) This rhythm is controlled primarily by light: specialized cells in the eye detect brightness and send signals that either permit or suppress melatonin production, which is why exposure to bright screens late at night can delay its release and make falling asleep more difficult. (B) Levels stay low throughout the bright hours of the day, begin rising in the evening as darkness falls, peak in the middle of the night, and then decline again as morning approaches. (C) Unlike some hormones that directly cause the body to perform a task, melatonin does not force sleep to occur; instead, it signals to the rest of the body that night has arrived, preparing various systems to shift into a lower-energy state. Because of this signaling role, taking melatonin supplements at the wrong time can shift a person's internal clock in the opposite direction from what was intended.

Wearable devices that track sleep have become enormously popular, promising a detailed breakdown of light, deep, and REM sleep each night. (A) Despite these limitations, many users have come to treat the nightly score generated by their device as an objective medical verdict, sometimes experiencing anxiety when the number falls below what they expect, a phenomenon researchers have begun calling orthosomnia. (B) Independent studies comparing wearable data with polysomnography, the gold-standard method used in clinical sleep labs, have found that consumer devices are reasonably accurate at distinguishing sleep from wakefulness but considerably less reliable at identifying specific sleep stages. Some trackers overestimate deep sleep, while others underestimate the amount of time spent in REM sleep, and the margin of error can vary widely between brands. (C) These gadgets typically rely on movement sensors and heart rate monitors to estimate sleep stages, since directly measuring brain activity would require equipment found only in a sleep laboratory. This indirect approach, however, introduces significant uncertainty.

Because the airway narrows gradually rather than closing all at once, the severity of each episode can vary widely. Sleep apnea is a disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and restarts during sleep, often because the muscles at the back of the throat relax too much and block the airway. ( ① ) Each pause can last from a few seconds to over a minute, and it may occur dozens of times in a single night without the sleeper ever waking up fully. ( ② ) Because these interruptions rarely produce a clear memory the next morning, many people remain unaware that anything is wrong, even as chronic fatigue, headaches, and irritability build up over months. ( ③ ) Doctors therefore rely less on a patient's own account of the night and more on objective measurements, such as overnight oxygen levels and airflow patterns recorded in a sleep laboratory. ( ④ ) Left untreated, the disorder has been linked to serious long-term risks, including high blood pressure and heart disease, which makes an accurate diagnosis far more urgent than its subtle nighttime symptoms might suggest. ( ⑤ )

A request as ordinary as asking for tomorrow's weather, for instance, triggers a surprisingly long chain of computation behind the scenes. Smart speakers have quietly become a fixture in many households, responding to spoken requests for weather updates, music, or kitchen timers. ( ① ) Behind this simple exchange lies a complex process: the device converts sound waves into text, interprets the meaning using language models, and then generates a spoken reply, all within a second or two. ( ② ) Because these assistants improve by learning from millions of interactions, they gradually become better at recognizing regional accents and casual phrasing that once confused them. ( ③ ) Still, the technology remains far from perfect. ( ④ ) Background noise, overlapping voices, or an unusual sentence structure can cause the assistant to misunderstand a simple request, sometimes with amusing results. ( ⑤ ) Engineers continue to refine these systems, but many admit that truly natural conversation remains one of the hardest goals in the entire field of artificial intelligence.