영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Devices that translate brain activity directly into digital commands have moved from laboratory experiments to real medical use, allowing paralyzed patients to control a robotic arm or type a message using thought alone. As the technology ①improves, some developers envision a future in which brain-computer interfaces extend beyond restoring lost function toward enhancing healthy minds. This prospect raises a philosophical question that medicine alone cannot answer: if a device can alter memory, mood, or decision-making, at what point does the assistance stop being a tool and start ②reshaping the very identity of the person using it. Neuroethicists argue that mental privacy, the ability to keep one's own thoughts ③exposed to external access or manipulation, may need to be recognized as a fundamental right before this technology becomes ④widespread. This concern is likely to grow ⑤more urgent as the devices become more powerful.

The discovery of CRISPR gene-editing technology gave scientists a tool ①precise enough to correct a single mistaken letter in the human genome, raising hope for curing inherited diseases that have resisted treatment for generations. Yet the same precision that makes CRISPR so promising also makes it ②dangerous in the wrong hands. Editing a gene in a sperm, egg, or early embryo does not simply change one patient; it alters the genetic code passed down to every future generation, a decision no single person should be allowed to make ③alone. Scientific organizations around the world have therefore drawn a careful line, ⑤permitting gene editing to treat disease in existing patients while ④permitting any edit that would be inherited by their descendants. Critics worry, however, that as the technology becomes cheaper and more widely available, this line will become harder to enforce than it is to draw.

Among the many strategies proposed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, one of the oldest draws on an agricultural technique predating modern industry, converting organic material into a ①stable form of charcoal known as biochar. Biochar is produced through pyrolysis, a process in which crop residues or wood chips are heated in an environment with little or no oxygen, preventing the material from burning away as in an open fire. This process leaves behind a carbon-rich solid that ②accelerates decomposition far longer than raw organic matter, locking carbon in a form remaining stable in soil for centuries. When mixed into farmland, biochar also improves soil structure, retaining moisture and nutrients otherwise lost, which can ③boost crop yields in depleted soils. For example, farmers cultivating nutrient-poor tropical soils have reported ④measurable increases in productivity after adding biochar. Nevertheless, researchers caution that the climate benefits of biochar depend on the feedstock and method used, since poorly managed pyrolysis can release as much carbon as it sequesters, ⑤undermining its own purpose.

Desalination, the process of removing dissolved salts from seawater to produce fresh water, has increasingly been adopted by coastal regions facing chronic water ①scarcity. Most modern facilities rely on reverse osmosis, a technique in which seawater is forced through membranes whose microscopic pores block salt while letting water molecules pass. Because this method ②consumes far less energy than the thermal distillation once dominant in the industry, it has become the preferred choice for large-scale plants. Nevertheless, desalination remains an inherently costly and environmentally burdensome solution, a fact often overlooked amid enthusiasm for ending water shortages. For instance, the process generates a ③concentrated byproduct called brine, which, when discharged without adequate dilution, can raise local salinity to levels that harm marine life. Pumping seawater through membranes at high pressure also demands substantial electricity, so plants powered by fossil fuels can ④alleviate the emissions that intensify drought. Therefore, engineers increasingly argue that desalination should be treated not as a stand-alone remedy but as one component of a ⑤broader conservation strategy.

Policymakers seeking to improve public welfare without restricting individual freedom have increasingly embraced an approach known as nudging, which alters the environment in which choices are made rather than mandating particular outcomes. A nudge preserves every option that was previously available; it simply arranges those options so that the choice deemed most beneficial becomes easier or more visible than the alternatives. Despite ongoing debate over its ethics, governments across many countries have adopted nudge-based programs, reporting outcomes that are frequently ___________ compared with those achieved through traditional regulation or public information campaigns alone.

Extended producer responsibility, a policy requiring manufacturers to bear responsibility for their products even after use, has been adopted by governments seeking to reduce landfill waste. Under such schemes, companies must finance the collection and recycling of goods once consumers discard them, rather than leaving municipalities to absorb the cost. Advocates maintain that _______________. Critics counter that the policy, whatever its theoretical merits, often fails to reduce waste meaningfully unless paired with rigorous enforcement and transparent reporting requirements. For instance, some manufacturers merely pass the added cost of compliance on to consumers, without making substantive changes to how products are designed. In contrast, jurisdictions that combine producer responsibility with strict eco-design standards and independent audits tend to witness genuine improvements in recyclability. Therefore, policymakers hoping to harness this approach must resist treating it as self-executing and instead invest in oversight that determines whether producers actually change behavior.

When people estimate the value of an unfamiliar product, they rarely rely on objective calculation alone; instead, they anchor their judgment to whatever numerical reference happens to be presented first, however arbitrary that number may be. A shopper who first sees a jacket listed at $300 before it is marked down to $150 will likely judge the discounted price as an excellent bargain. Such evidence indicates that rational deliberation alone cannot fully explain how value is perceived, since the ___________ ultimately shapes what buyers are willing to pay.

When a resource is shared among many users, none of whom bears the full cost of its depletion, each individual is tempted to extract as much value as possible before others do the same. (A) This dynamic, famously labeled the tragedy of the commons, describes how shared pastures and fisheries can be degraded even when every participant privately understands the danger of overuse. (B) A single herder who adds one more animal to a communal pasture gains the entire benefit of that addition, whereas the resulting damage to the grass is shared among other herders who depend on the land. Because self-interest offers no incentive to restrain consumption unilaterally, the resource tends to be exhausted long before any user intends such an outcome. (C) For decades, economists assumed that only two remedies existed: strict regulation or the conversion of shared resources into private property. Elinor Ostrom challenged this assumption, however, by documenting communities that had sustainably managed fisheries and forests for generations through locally devised rules and mutual monitoring rather than external control.

Suppose a traveler journeyed backward in time and, through some combination of accident and intention, prevented their own grandfather from ever meeting their grandmother. Time travel to the past has long fascinated physicists and philosophers alike, but it also generates a famously troubling contradiction. ( ① ) If the grandfather never had children, the traveler themselves would never have been born, which means the traveler could never have existed to make the trip in the first place. ( ② ) Yet if the traveler never made the trip, the grandfather would have survived to meet the grandmother after all, allowing the traveler to be born and eventually travel back in time. ( ③ ) The story therefore loops endlessly, undermining itself at every turn rather than settling into any stable outcome. ( ④ ) Some physicists resolve the paradox by arguing that any consistent timeline must forbid such self-defeating actions from ever succeeding. ( ⑤ ) Others propose that a traveler who alters the past simply branches off into a separate, parallel timeline instead.

The same mechanism that helps citizens save more for retirement, in other words, can just as easily be turned against their financial interests. Default settings are not inherently virtuous; their ethical value depends entirely on whose interests they serve. ( ① ) A retirement plan that automatically enrolls employees at a reasonable contribution rate generally benefits those employees by overcoming their tendency toward inertia. ( ② ) A subscription service that automatically renews at a higher price unless the customer actively cancels, however, exploits that very same inertia for the company's benefit rather than the customer's. ( ③ ) Both arrangements rely on the identical psychological tendency to accept whatever has been preselected. ( ④ ) Distinguishing between beneficial and exploitative uses of default settings therefore requires examining not the mechanism itself but the intentions and incentives of whoever designed it. ( ⑤ ) Regulators increasingly demand transparency about default settings precisely because the mechanism alone cannot reveal whether it serves the consumer or merely the company offering it.