영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

문제 1

Psychologist Leon Festinger introduced social comparison theory, which ①explains that people evaluate 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 ②who appears more successful, attractive, or accomplished. Social media platforms, filled with carefully edited photos and exaggerated achievements, ③provide endless opportunities for this kind of comparison. For instance, a teenager browsing vacation pictures posted by classmates may begin to feel that her own ordinary life ④are somehow inadequate. Unlike comparing oneself with someone in a similar position, which can sometimes boost confidence, upward comparison frequently ⑤triggers envy, dissatisfaction, and lower self-esteem.

문제 2

Researchers who ①study teenagers have found a strong link between how well students sleep and how well they perform in school. Students who sleep fewer than seven hours a night tend to score lower on tests of memory and attention than those who ②sleep eight or nine hours, even when the two groups study for the same number of hours. One explanation is that sleep plays an active role in learning: during certain stages of sleep, the brain replays and strengthens information ③encountered during the day, converting fragile short-term memories into more durable long-term ones. When sleep is cut short, this consolidation process is interrupted before it can finish, so material that seemed well understood the night before often ④feel unfamiliar the next morning. For this reason, some schools have begun rethinking early start times, reasoning that an extra hour of sleep might do more for test scores than an extra hour of studying ever ⑤could.

문제 3

Rather than displaying products in the usual manner, the team designed the space to resemble a colorful garden, inviting visitors to explore and take photographs. Lines formed outside the store within days, even though the products themselves were already available online. Curious about this success, a marketing researcher later interviewed several visitors, who explained that the temporary nature of the event made the experience feel special and worth attending in person. When the two weeks ended, the brand reported a significant ①decrease in both sales and social media followers. ②Encouraged by these results, the company ③began planning ④additional pop-up events in ⑤other cities.

문제 4

Only a decade ago, translation apps produced sentences so ①awkward that users often laughed at the results rather than trusting them. Today, many of these apps rely on neural networks that analyze entire sentences at once, capturing context instead of translating word by word. This shift has made everyday tasks such as reading a foreign menu or chatting with an overseas friend remarkably ②chaotic. Frequent travelers now point their phone cameras at street signs and receive an ③instant translation overlaid on the screen. Even so, the technology still struggles with humor, sarcasm, and cultural nuance, areas where a single wrong word can ④completely change the intended meaning. For this reason, professional translators argue that these apps are best treated as a helpful ⑤starting point rather than a final, polished result.

문제 5

Choice architecture refers to how decisions are designed. It determines which option is automatically selected unless a person ①actively chooses otherwise, known as the default option. Research consistently shows that people tend to stick with whatever is already set, 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 ②much higher donation rates than opt-in countries. Retirement savings programs show a similar pattern, since employees automatically enrolled in a pension plan ③rarely 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 ④unnecessary. Still, supporters insist that because some default must always exist, it should support people's own long-term interests rather than mere ⑤institutional convenience.

문제 6

Job seekers often assume that their closest friends will be the most helpful source of career advice. (A) In fact, studies show that a surprising number of job offers come through acquaintances met only briefly at conferences or previous workplaces. (B) However, close friends usually work in the same field or social circle, so their knowledge of new openings tends to overlap with what the job seeker already knows. (C) This is because such acquaintances belong to different professional circles, giving them access to information that never reaches close friends.

문제 7

Habit researchers often note that people overestimate the role of motivation in daily routines. (A) As a result, they frequently give up soon after starting, blaming themselves for lacking discipline. (B) In contrast, Fogg's framework suggests that shrinking the task itself is more effective than boosting motivation. (C) Because motivation naturally rises and falls, relying on it alone often leads to inconsistent effort.

문제 8

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.

문제 9

Whenever a user marks a message as spam or rescues a message mistakenly filtered out, that action becomes new training data, sharpening the filter's future decisions. Every day, email providers quietly block billions of unwanted messages before they ever reach a user's inbox, a task that would be impossible without an AI filtering system running constantly in the background. ( ① ) The filter examines each incoming message for suspicious patterns, including certain keywords, unusual sender addresses, and formatting tricks that scammers commonly rely on to slip past detection. ( ② ) What makes the system effective is that it keeps learning after launch. ( ③ ) This creates a constant back-and-forth, since spammers study which messages get blocked and then adjust their wording to slip through again. ( ④ ) As a result, spam filtering is less like a fixed wall and more like an ongoing contest, with each side continuously adapting to outsmart the other. ( ⑤ )

문제 10

None of these explanations, in other words, has to be the whole story. For centuries, dreams have fascinated scientists and philosophers alike, yet no single theory fully explains why the sleeping brain generates such vivid and often bizarre experiences. ( ① ) One prominent idea suggests that dreaming helps the brain process emotional experiences, replaying difficult events in a safe, low-stakes environment so that their emotional intensity gradually fades. ( ② ) Another theory proposes that dreams serve a more practical function, allowing the brain to rehearse responses to threats without any real danger, a kind of nightly simulation that may have offered early humans a survival advantage. ( ③ ) Still other researchers argue that dreaming is simply a byproduct of the brain organizing memories, with vivid imagery arising as the mind sorts through the day's information rather than serving any independent purpose of its own. ( ④ ) Because these theories rest on indirect evidence rather than direct observation of subjective experience, none has been conclusively proven. ( ⑤ ) Many scientists now suspect that dreaming may serve several of these functions simultaneously rather than just one.