영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

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 ①store primarily in a brain region called the hippocampus, ②which 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 ③transferring the information to the cortex for more durable, long-term storage. This replay strengthens the connections between neurons that encoded the original experience, ④making the memory more resistant to interference from unrelated events the following day. Sleep researchers have demonstrated this effect experimentally: participants who slept after ⑤learning a list of word pairs recalled more items the next day than participants who remained awake instead.

When Mina graduated from college five years ago, she had never even heard the term "data scientist." After graduation, she ①struggled to find a job that matched her interests, since most companies did not fully understand what her skills were worth. Everything changed when a small tech startup hired her to ②analyze massive amounts of data. Mina quickly discovered that she loved turning raw numbers into insights that helped real people make ③worse decisions. Within two years, demand for professionals like her had ④exploded, as companies in every industry realized how valuable data could be. Today, Mina ⑤leads a team of ten analysts, mentoring young graduates.

Anthropologist Robin Dunbar proposed a concept now known as Dunbar's number, suggesting that human beings can only ①abandon about one hundred fifty stable social relationships at any given time. This limit, he argued, comes from the size of the human brain, which ②restricts 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 are ④close 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 largely ⑤unnoticed.

Time-management researchers frequently mention a principle known as Parkinson's Law, which states that ___________. According to this idea, a task that could be finished in one hour will often stretch to fill an entire afternoon if that much time is scheduled for it. Students who set vague deadlines frequently experience this effect, spending extra hours refining a report that was already complete. Employees given a full week for a simple project may also delay meaningful progress until the final days, even though the actual work requires far less effort. This pattern happens partly because people unconsciously adjust their pace to match perceived urgency. Setting shorter, more specific deadlines can counter this tendency, forcing tasks to fit within a tighter and more realistic window. By recognizing how flexible time encourages unnecessary delay, individuals can complete assignments more efficiently without sacrificing quality.

Caffeine is the most widely consumed stimulant in the world, prized for its ability to sharpen focus and fight off fatigue within minutes of consumption. It works by blocking adenosine, a chemical that gradually builds up in the brain throughout the day and makes us feel increasingly sleepy the longer we stay awake. By occupying the receptors that adenosine would normally bind to, caffeine tricks the brain into feeling alert even when the body has accumulated significant sleep pressure. The effects, however, last far longer than most people realize. Because caffeine can remain active in the bloodstream for five to six hours, a cup of coffee consumed in the late afternoon may still be interfering with the ability to fall asleep at midnight. Even when people do not consciously notice difficulty falling asleep, _______________. For this reason, many sleep specialists advise avoiding caffeine after early afternoon.

Anyone who has ridden a bicycle after a decade away from one has likely experienced muscle memory firsthand: the body seems to recall a complex skill almost instantly, even when conscious memory of the exact movements has faded. (A) Interestingly, research also suggests that these neural pathways can remain partially intact even after long periods without practice, which is why relearning a skill is typically much faster than learning it for the very first time. (B) Contrary to what the name suggests, muscles themselves do not actually store memories; the phenomenon originates in the brain and nervous system, where repeated practice gradually shifts control of a movement from conscious regions to areas that operate largely automatically. (C) This shift explains why a skilled athlete can execute a complicated sequence of movements without consciously thinking through each individual step, freeing mental attention for strategy and decision-making instead.

Travelers who cross several time zones in a single flight often arrive feeling exhausted, foggy, and strangely out of sync with the local clock, a condition widely known as jet lag. (A) The discomfort arises because the body's internal clock, which governs sleep, hunger, and alertness, continues to run on the schedule of the departure city even after landing, and realigning it typically takes about one day for every time zone crossed. (B) Flying eastward tends to produce more severe symptoms than flying westward, because advancing the internal clock forward is generally harder for the body than delaying it. (C) Exposure to natural light at the right moments after arrival can help speed up the adjustment, since light is the strongest external cue the internal clock uses to reset itself.

Opening most camera apps today reveals a row of filters that can smooth skin, brighten eyes, and reshape a jawline before a photo is even taken, all powered by AI models trained to recognize facial features in real time. (A) Psychologists have grown concerned about a specific consequence of this shift: people increasingly compare their unfiltered reflection in a mirror to a filtered version of themselves seen constantly on a screen. (B) What began as a playful novelty has become a default setting for many users, subtly adjusting nearly every selfie posted online. (C) Some social media platforms have responded by labeling heavily edited photos or banning certain filters that alter body shape.

The classification of platform workers has become one of the most debated issues in modern labor law. (A) For this reason, companies generally prefer classifying these workers as independent contractors rather than full employees. (B) Being classified this way, however, means workers miss out on protections such as minimum wage and paid leave. (C) Employee status requires companies to provide benefits and follow strict labor regulations, which increases operating costs.

Only a decade ago, translation apps produced sentences so awkward that users often laughed at the results rather than trusting them. (A) Frequent travelers now point their phone cameras at street signs and receive an instant translation overlaid on the screen, thanks to this leap in accuracy. (B) Even so, the technology still struggles with humor, sarcasm, and cultural nuance, areas where a single wrong word can completely change the intended meaning. (C) Today, many of these apps rely on neural networks that analyze entire sentences at once, capturing context instead of translating word by word.