영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Anthropologist Robin Dunbar ①proposed a concept now known as Dunbar's number, suggesting that human beings can only maintain about one hundred fifty stable social relationships at any given time. This limit, he argued, comes from the size of the human brain, ②which restricts how many meaningful connections a person can cognitively manage. In contrast, many social media users today have hundreds or even thousands of online friends and followers, a number far ③exceeding what Dunbar's research predicts. However, having numerous digital contacts does not necessarily mean that all of these relationships ④are close or emotionally supportive. Most users, when asked, admit that they interact regularly with only a small fraction of their total followers, while the rest remain ⑤largely unnoticing.

Across the world, teenagers are chronically short on sleep, often getting two or three hours less than the eight to ten hours experts recommend for their age. Part of the problem lies in biology: as puberty begins, the body's internal clock naturally shifts later, ①making it difficult for teenagers to fall asleep before eleven at night. Yet school start times rarely adjust to this shift, ②forcing students to wake before their bodies are ready. The consequences extend well beyond simple tiredness. Chronic sleep loss during adolescence has been linked to impaired concentration, weakened memory, and a higher risk of anxiety and depression. It can also disrupt the hormones ③that regulating appetite, contributing to unhealthy weight gain over time. Some school districts have experimented with ④delaying start times by even thirty minutes, and early results suggest that students who gain that extra rest show improved grades, better mood, and fewer tardy arrivals. Despite this evidence, changing entrenched school schedules ⑤remains a slow and contentious process.

Sociologist Erving Goffman argued that people constantly perform for others, much like actors managing their image on a stage, a concept known as impression management. This idea applies vividly to social media, where users select ①flattering photos and delete posts that might damage their reputation. Such careful curation allows people to present an ②idealized version of themselves that emphasizes achievements while hiding struggles or ordinary moments. However, when this performance becomes constant, a troubling gap can form between one's authentic self and the polished character displayed online. Maintaining that gap requires considerable emotional energy, and studies suggest it often leads to ③anxiety and exhaustion. Furthermore, comparing one's own carefully staged life to others' equally staged posts can ④distort what people believe is normal. Therefore, individuals should recognize that some self-presentation online is inevitable, but they must also ⑤ignore space where imperfection is allowed to remain visible.

Psychologist Leon Festinger introduced social comparison theory, which explains that people ①evaluate their own abilities and opinions by comparing themselves with others. According to this theory, individuals engage in upward comparison when they measure themselves against someone who appears more ②successful, attractive, or accomplished. For instance, a teenager browsing vacation pictures posted by classmates may begin to feel that her own ordinary life is somehow ③inadequate. Unlike comparing oneself with someone in a similar position, which can sometimes ④boost confidence, upward comparison frequently triggers envy, dissatisfaction, and lower self-esteem. Researchers have found that frequent upward comparison online is linked to ⑤lower depression and anxiety.

Psychologists have long studied a mechanism called the variable reward schedule, in which rewards arrive ①predictably rather than after every single action. Slot machines famously exploit this principle, and social media notifications operate on strikingly similar logic. When someone posts a photo, they cannot predict exactly when likes will appear, nor how many they will eventually receive. This uncertainty triggers a small burst of dopamine each time the phone is checked, regardless of whether the result is ②disappointing or thrilling. Consequently, users often refresh their feeds ③compulsively, hoping the next check will finally bring a satisfying reward. What makes this troubling is that technology companies ④deliberately designed notification systems using insights borrowed from gambling research, rather than stumbling upon them by accident. Such practices raise serious ethical questions about ⑤manipulating users' brains for profit.

When Daniel was a child, he dreamed of becoming an astronaut, yet he assumed such careers belonged only to a handful of government scientists. During an internship, he helped design a small satellite intended to monitor crop health from orbit, a project that combined engineering with agricultural science. He realized that ___________. After graduation, Daniel joined a startup developing lunar landing equipment, a job that barely existed when he first imagined his future career.

Across many countries, high schools begin classes early in the morning, often before eight o'clock. This schedule assumes that teenagers can simply go to bed earlier to compensate, but biology tells a different story. During adolescence, the body's internal clock shifts later, delaying the release of melatonin until well after ten at night. As a result, most teenagers are not physiologically ready to fall asleep until much later than younger children or adults. When early start times force them to wake before their bodies have completed a full sleep cycle, the mismatch accumulates into a chronic sleep debt that affects concentration and mood throughout the school day. Researchers who study this mismatch argue that _______________. Some school districts that delayed their start times by thirty minutes reported improvements in attendance, suggesting that the timing of the school day matters more than commonly assumed.

During sleep, the brain does not simply rest; it actively reorganizes the day's experiences into lasting memories through a process called consolidation. Newly formed memories are initially fragile and stored primarily in a brain region called the hippocampus, which has limited long-term capacity. While a person sleeps, particularly during the deep stages of non-REM sleep, neural activity replays these fresh memory traces in rapid, compressed sequences, gradually transferring the information to the cortex for more durable, long-term storage. This replay strengthens the connections between neurons that encoded the original experience, making the memory more resistant to interference from unrelated events the following day. Sleep researchers have demonstrated this effect experimentally: participants who slept after learning a list of word pairs recalled more items the next day than participants who remained awake instead. Crucially, the benefit was not limited to simple recall; sleep also seemed to help participants extract general patterns from the material, suggesting that _______________.

Many teenagers check their social media accounts dozens of times a day, worried that they might miss something important happening among their friends. This anxiety, known as FOMO, or the fear of missing out, arises when people believe that others are enjoying experiences from which they themselves are excluded. For example, a student scrolling through photos of a party she was not invited to may suddenly feel a wave of loneliness and regret, even though the event has already ended. Constantly refreshing feeds to avoid missing such updates, however, makes it difficult to concentrate on schoolwork or conversations happening in the present moment. Moreover, this endless comparison with curated highlights of other people's lives tends to deepen feelings of anxiety rather than relieve them. Therefore, students should learn to ___________.

After an especially demanding training session, the instinct to collapse onto a couch and remain motionless is understandable, yet exercise physiologists increasingly recommend the opposite approach. (A) This gentle activity keeps blood circulating through tired muscles, which appears to help clear metabolic byproducts more efficiently than complete stillness does. (B) Some athletes worry that any movement at all will interfere with the repair process, but research suggests that truly light activity does not meaningfully slow healing. (C) Active recovery involves performing low-intensity movement, such as a light jog, an easy swim, or a gentle bike ride, on days following intense exertion rather than resting completely.