영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

문제 1

Elite athletes often perform in front of enormous crowds with championships, contracts, and years of training riding on a single moment, and the psychological weight of that pressure can ①undermine skills that feel automatic in practice. Sports psychologists explain that intense anxiety narrows attention and disrupts the smooth, unconscious execution of well-learned movements, a phenomenon sometimes ②called choking under pressure. Rather than trying to eliminate nervousness entirely, which research suggests ③are nearly impossible, many trainers now teach athletes ④to reinterpret the physical symptoms of anxiety, such as a racing heart, as signs of readiness rather than danger. Over time, repeated exposure to high-pressure situations in practice, deliberately ⑤simulated to resemble real competition, allows athletes to build tolerance the same way their muscles adapt to physical training.

문제 2

After a strenuous workout, muscle fibers experience thousands of microscopic tears, and the body immediately begins a repair process ①that ultimately makes the muscle stronger than it was before. This repair depends heavily on amino acids, the building blocks that protein ②supplying, which is why sports scientists recommend consuming protein within a couple of hours after training. Waiting too long to eat can slow recovery, since a muscle's sensitivity to amino acids gradually ③declines once that window closes. Many athletes assume that eating an enormous quantity of protein in a single sitting will speed up this process, but the body can only use a limited amount at once; the rest is simply ④burned for energy or stored as fat. For this reason, nutritionists generally advise ⑤spreading moderate portions of protein evenly across several meals throughout the day rather than saving it all for one large post-workout meal.

문제 3

Parents and coaches sometimes worry that heavy resistance training might damage the growth plates in a young athlete's bones, cartilage regions near the ends of long bones that are ①responsible for lengthening as a child develops. This concern kept strength training out of many youth programs for decades. However, extensive research over the past twenty years has found ②little evidence that properly supervised resistance training harms growth plates in healthy children. The actual risk arises not from lifting weights itself but from ③poor technique, excessive load, and inadequate supervision. Major pediatric and sports medicine organizations now generally agree that structured strength programs, when taught with correct form and appropriate weight, can safely ④improve bone density, coordination, and injury resistance in young athletes. The key variable, in other words, is not whether children lift weights but how carefully that training is ⑤ignored.

문제 4

Even a modest level of dehydration, as little as two percent of body weight lost through sweat, can measurably ①increase an athlete's endurance and cognitive sharpness during competition. As fluid levels drop, blood volume decreases, forcing the heart to work harder to deliver the same amount of oxygen to working muscles, which ②accelerates fatigue. Dehydration also impairs the body's ability to regulate its own temperature, since sweating is the primary mechanism for releasing excess heat during intense exercise. Athletes competing in hot, humid conditions face a particularly ③difficult balance, because sweating heavily to stay cool simultaneously depletes the very fluids needed to sustain performance. Simply drinking large amounts of plain water is not always sufficient, however, since heavy sweating also flushes out sodium and other electrolytes ④essential for proper muscle function. For this reason, sports scientists generally recommend a hydration strategy that replaces both fluid and electrolytes, ⑤tailored to an individual athlete's sweat rate and the specific conditions of the event.

문제 5

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 ①slow 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 ②restoration. 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 it plays a central role in ③ignoring memories and processing emotional experiences. A healthy night typically cycles through both stages four or five times, with non-REM dominating the early hours and REM periods ④lengthening toward morning. Disrupting either stage, through frequent awakenings or alcohol use, can leave a person feeling ⑤unrested even after a full night in bed.

문제 6

Wearable devices that track sleep have become ①enormously popular, promising a detailed breakdown of light, deep, and REM sleep each night. 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 ②indirect approach, however, introduces ③significant uncertainty. 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 ④narrowly between brands. Despite these limitations, many users have come to treat the nightly score generated by their device as an ⑤objective medical verdict, sometimes experiencing anxiety when the number falls below what they expect, a phenomenon researchers have begun calling orthosomnia.

문제 7

Across many countries, high schools begin classes early in the morning, often before eight o'clock. (A) Researchers who study this mismatch argue that the underlying problem is not laziness or poor discipline among students, but a scheduling system built around adult rhythms rather than adolescent ones. (B) This schedule assumes that teenagers can simply go to bed earlier to compensate, but biology tells a different story, because the body's internal clock shifts later during adolescence, delaying the release of melatonin until well after ten at night. (C) As a result, most teenagers are not physiologically ready to fall asleep until much later than adults, and when early start times force them to wake before completing a full sleep cycle, the mismatch accumulates into a chronic sleep debt.

문제 8

Smartphones, tablets, and computer screens all emit a significant amount of blue light, a short-wavelength light that our eyes are especially sensitive to. (A) At night, however, the same wavelength can interfere with the body's natural preparation for sleep by suppressing the release of melatonin. (B) During the day, exposure to blue light from the sun helps keep us alert and mentally sharp, which is generally beneficial. (C) For this reason, some devices now offer a night mode that shifts the display toward warmer tones, though sleep researchers still recommend limiting screen use before bedtime.

문제 9

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.

문제 10

These physiological adjustments, though subtle, translate into a noticeable difference once competition actually begins. Skipping a proper warm-up before intense exercise might seem like a harmless way to save a few minutes, but the practice carries real physiological costs. ( ① ) A cold muscle is stiffer and less elastic than a warm one, making it considerably more prone to strains and tears when suddenly asked to contract forcefully. ( ② ) Gradually raising body temperature through light activity increases blood flow to the muscles, allowing oxygen to reach tissue more efficiently and enabling nerve signals to travel faster between the brain and the muscle fibers. A proper warm-up also raises heart rate gradually, easing the cardiovascular system into strenuous work rather than shocking it with a sudden demand. ( ③ ) Athletes who warm up thoroughly tend to report better performance in the early minutes of competition, since their bodies are already primed rather than adjusting on the fly. ( ④ ) For this reason, coaches treat warm-up routines not as optional preparation but as an essential part of training itself. ( ⑤ )