영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Smart speakers have quietly become a fixture in many households, ①responding to spoken requests for weather updates, music, or kitchen timers. 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. Because these assistants improve by ②learning from millions of interactions, they gradually become better at recognizing regional accents and casual phrasing that once confused them. Still, the technology remains far from perfect. Background noise, overlapping voices, or an unusual sentence structure can cause the assistant ③misunderstanding a simple request, sometimes with amusing results. Engineers continue to refine these systems, but many admit that truly natural conversation, the kind ④that flows without repeated commands or awkward pauses, ⑤remains one of the hardest goals in the entire field of artificial intelligence.

Instead of typing keywords into a search bar, a growing number of people now simply upload a photo and let an algorithm ①figure out what it contains. This process, known as reverse image search, compares the visual patterns in a picture against a massive database, ②identifying everything from a landmark in the background to the exact model of a pair of sneakers. Shoppers use it to find where an item seen on the street can ③be purchased, while students use it to identify plants, insects, or historical artworks in seconds. The system works by breaking an image down into countless small features, then ④matches that pattern against millions of stored examples. It is not flawless, however; a blurry photo, an unusual camera angle, or an object partly hidden behind another can easily ⑤confuse the algorithm.

Many people believe that a new habit becomes automatic after only twenty-one days, but researchers who ①examined real behavior found a different number. This project, ②called the 66-day habit formation study, tracked volunteers who tried to adopt a new daily habit, like drinking water with lunch. Researchers measured how automatic each action felt over time and found that habits ③needing an average of sixty-six days to become effortless. Yet the actual time varied widely, ranging from about eighteen days for simple habits to over two hundred days for ④difficult ones. This wide range explains why the popular twenty-one-day claim, though easy ⑤to remember, rarely matches real experience.

The planning fallacy describes the tendency to ①underestimate how long a task will take, even when experience suggests otherwise. Psychologists who studied this bias found that people focus mainly on an ②idealized, best-case version of a project. They focus less on how similar projects actually unfolded before. Large construction projects offer another example. Officials frequently predict completion dates that later prove far too ③optimistic once delays appear. One reason this bias persists is that people ④rarely review their history of missed deadlines, relying instead on hopeful imagination. By anchoring predictions to real outcomes, planners can produce estimates that are considerably more ⑤inaccurate.

An echo chamber refers to an online environment where people are mainly exposed to opinions that already match their own beliefs. This phenomenon occurs because social media algorithms tend to recommend content similar to what users have previously liked or shared, gradually narrowing the range of perspectives they encounter. As a result, individuals inside an echo chamber rarely engage with viewpoints that challenge their existing assumptions, which allows their original beliefs to grow increasingly extreme over time. For example, someone who frequently reads articles supporting one political party may begin to see the opposing party as entirely unreasonable, having never seriously considered its arguments. Political polarization, a significant issue in many countries today, is often linked to this pattern of selective exposure. Breaking out of an echo chamber requires ___________.

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.

Choice architecture refers to how decisions are designed. It determines which option is automatically selected unless a person chooses otherwise, known as the default option. Research consistently shows that ___________, even when changing it takes only seconds. Organ donation is a well-known example. Countries where citizens are automatically registered as donors unless they opt out show much higher donation rates than opt-in countries. Retirement savings programs show a similar pattern, since employees automatically enrolled in a pension plan rarely cancel it. Voluntary sign-ups, in contrast, often delay indefinitely. Critics argue that default options can be manipulated to benefit companies rather than individuals, so transparency about how defaults are chosen becomes essential. Still, supporters insist that because some default must always exist, it should support people's own long-term interests rather than mere institutional convenience.

Psychologist Roy Baumeister proposed a concept called ego depletion theory, which suggests that ___________. According to this theory, every act of self-control, from resisting a snack to concentrating on difficult homework, draws from the same limited mental resource. As this resource becomes depleted throughout the day, later decisions require more effort and are more likely to fail. For instance, someone who exercises discipline avoiding distractions all morning may struggle to resist checking a phone by evening. Likewise, dieters report that self-control weakens sharply at night, after hours of resisting food. Some researchers argue that short breaks, adequate sleep, and blood sugar levels can help restore this depleted resource. Although later studies have questioned how strong this effect is, the theory still offers a useful framework for understanding why willpower seems to fade throughout a long day.

When a customer opens a company's website at midnight with a billing question, an actual employee is unlikely to be available, which is exactly the gap that customer service chatbots were built to fill. (A) These programs can instantly answer common questions, track packages, and process simple refunds without making anyone wait on hold, and a single chatbot can handle thousands of conversations simultaneously. (B) Yet the technology has clear boundaries, since an unusual or emotionally charged problem can leave the automated replies feeling frustratingly circular. (C) Many companies have responded by designing chatbots to recognize their own limits, automatically transferring a frustrated customer to a human agent before the conversation turns into a source of complaint.

주어진 문장: This is why productivity coaches often recommend starting with just one or two blocks per day rather than filling the entire schedule at once. Time blocking is a time-management technique in which a person divides the day into fixed blocks. Each block is then assigned to a single task. ( ① ) Instead of relying on a loose to-do list, the person decides exactly when each task will start and end. ( ② ) This approach lowers the mental effort of deciding what to do next, since the schedule already provides the answer. ( ③ ) It also limits multitasking, because each block is reserved for only one activity at a time. ( ④ ) For instance, a student may block ninety minutes for math practice, leaving no room for messages or web browsing, while another student may reserve an evening block solely for vocabulary review. Because each block has a clear boundary, unfinished work is less likely to quietly spread into the next task. Many people who adopt time blocking feel more organized throughout the day. ( ⑤ )