영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Social psychologists describe a phenomenon called the bystander effect, in which individuals become less likely ①helping a victim as the number of witnesses increases. Each observer assumes someone else will step in, and this diffusion of responsibility leaves no one ②willing to act. Cyberbullying magnifies this problem, since a single humiliating post can be witnessed by thousands of people ③scattered across the internet rather than a few standing nearby. Anonymity intensifies the effect further, allowing silent observers ④to scroll past cruel comments without feeling accountable for their inaction. Some bystanders even worry that intervening publicly might make them the bully's next target, so they choose ⑤to remain silent instead.

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.

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.

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 ①fragile and stored primarily in a brain region called the hippocampus, which has ②unlimited 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 ③durable, long-term storage. This replay strengthens the connections between neurons that encoded the original experience, making the memory more ④resistant 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 ⑤extract general patterns from the material, suggesting that consolidation involves more than passive storage.

Many students ①assume that perfectionists work harder than everyone else, but psychologists describe a puzzling pattern called the perfectionism-procrastination cycle. Because perfectionists set impossibly high standards, they often feel ②anxious before they even begin, and the task feels overwhelming. They then ③accelerate the work to avoid facing their own unrealistic expectations, even though delay only increases their stress later. Likewise, an employee facing an important report may check emails repeatedly rather than begin drafting, fearing an early attempt will seem ④inadequate. Ironically, this avoidance guarantees the very failure that perfectionists dread, since ⑤rushed, last-minute work rarely meets their own high standards.

VO2 max, defined as the maximum volume of oxygen a person's body can consume and use during intense exercise, is widely regarded as one of the best single indicators of cardiorespiratory fitness. Elite endurance athletes typically post VO2 max values far higher than those of untrained individuals. While genetics accounts for a substantial portion of an individual's potential VO2 max, consistent aerobic training can still raise the measurement considerably over months of dedicated effort. It is worth noting, however, that a high VO2 max does not guarantee success in competition, since _______________.

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.

Climate change deniers often seem to ignore evidence that contradicts their views, and psychologists have a specific explanation for this behavior. (A) For example, someone whose job depends on fossil fuels may search for reasons to doubt the data, even while insisting that they respect science. (B) This concept, called motivated reasoning, describes how people process information in ways that protect their existing beliefs and lifestyles rather than pursue objective truth. (C) Rather than being a simple failure of intelligence, this pattern reflects a well-documented psychological tendency studied for decades.

In other words, the two stages appear to serve complementary purposes, one restoring the body and the other restoring the mind. 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. ( ① ) During non-REM sleep, especially its deepest stage, the brain waves slow down dramatically, the body temperature drops, and tissue repair and growth hormone release reach their peak. ( ② ) This is the period most closely associated with physical restoration. ( ③ ) REM sleep, by contrast, brings rapid eye movements, near-total muscle paralysis, and brain activity that closely resembles wakefulness. ( ④ ) Most vivid dreaming occurs during this stage, and researchers believe it plays a central role in consolidating memories and processing emotional experiences. ( ⑤ ) A healthy night typically cycles through both stages four or five times, with non-REM dominating the early hours and REM periods lengthening toward morning. Disrupting either stage, through frequent awakenings or alcohol use, can leave a person feeling unrested even after a full night in bed.

In other words, the body keeps a running total rather than resetting each day. Sleep debt refers to the cumulative gap between the amount of sleep a person needs and the amount they actually get. ( ① ) Unlike a financial debt, however, this deficit cannot simply be repaid with a single long weekend of rest. ( ② ) When someone loses two hours of sleep every night for a week, the body does not treat the shortage as fourteen separate small losses; instead, it accumulates the deficit, and the resulting impairment in attention and mood can resemble that of a person who has been awake for an entire night. ( ③ ) Researchers have found that even modest, chronic sleep restriction gradually impairs reaction time and decision-making, often without the affected person noticing the decline. ( ④ ) This is because subjective feelings of tiredness tend to plateau after a few days, even as objective performance keeps deteriorating. ( ⑤ ) Consequently, people frequently underestimate how much sleep debt they are carrying until a demanding task suddenly exposes the accumulated cost.