영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

People routinely seek out information that confirms what they already believe while overlooking or dismissing evidence that ①contradicts those beliefs, a pattern known as confirmation bias. This tendency operates not because individuals are deliberately dishonest, but because the mind finds it cognitively less taxing ②to absorb information that fits an existing framework than to reconstruct that framework from scratch. Investors who believe a particular company will succeed, for instance, tend to interpret ambiguous news about that company favorably, while investors who ③are skeptical of the same company interpret identical news unfavorably, even though both groups are examining the same underlying facts. Social media platforms can intensify this effect by algorithmically presenting users with content similar to what they have previously engaged with, thereby ④narrowing the range of perspectives an individual regularly encounters. Over time, such selective exposure can harden initial impressions into convictions that ⑤feels objectively verified, even though they rest on a systematically filtered sample of evidence.

Philosopher Robert Nozick asked his readers to imagine a machine capable of producing any experience they ①desired, from writing a great novel to falling in love, all indistinguishable from reality once they were plugged in. Neuroscientists would simply stimulate the brain to generate a lifetime of perfectly satisfying experiences, and the person floating in the tank would have no memory of ever choosing to enter it. If pleasure and the avoidance of pain were truly all that mattered, as classical hedonism claims, then everyone should ②rush to connect themselves permanently to such a machine. Yet when people actually consider the offer, most ③eagerly accept, and many refuse outright. Nozick took this reluctance as evidence that human beings care about more than the quality of their internal sensations; people also want to actually ④do certain things, to actually be a certain kind of person, and to maintain genuine ⑤contact with a reality beyond their own mind.

Consider a village green shared freely by every herder in the community, where each individual may graze as many animals as they wish without paying any fee. From the perspective of any single herder, adding one more animal to the shared pasture brings a clear personal ①loss, since the extra income belongs entirely to that herder alone. The cost of the additional grazing, however, is spread thinly across every herder who uses the green, so no single individual bears more than a tiny fraction of the ②damage. Because this calculation favors adding more animals for every rational herder, the shared pasture is gradually ③overgrazed until it can no longer support any animals at all, harming the very community whose rational members caused the collapse. Philosophers use this scenario to illustrate a troubling gap between what benefits an individual in the short term and what preserves a shared resource in the ④long term, a gap that voluntary self-restraint alone rarely ⑤closes.

Imagine rewriting a bacterium's code the way a programmer edits a line of software, and much of what synthetic biology promises begins to make sense. Researchers in this field assemble standardized genetic parts into circuits that can be inserted into a cell, instructing it to perform a task that no natural organism would carry out. Because these circuits are built from interchangeable parts rather than designed from scratch each time, _______________. Critics note that biological systems rarely behave as predictably as electronic circuits, since a gene inserted into a new cell can interact with existing pathways in unexpected ways. Even so, as the catalog of standardized parts keeps expanding, engineers are gaining confidence to design increasingly complex systems.

Blockchain technology was originally promoted as a way to remove the need for trusted middlemen, allowing strangers to exchange value directly through a shared, tamper-resistant ledger. (A) In practice, however, a small number of large players have come to dominate many blockchain networks, controlling enough power to influence outcomes that were supposed to be decided collectively. (B) In theory, this design distributes power away from any single institution and toward the network as a whole. (C) Critics note a further irony: when something goes wrong, there is often no institution left to appeal to, since the system was designed to eliminate central authority.

Millions of people now wear devices that continuously track their heart rate, sleep patterns, and daily activity, generating an intimate stream of health data. (A) In practice, however, the terms of service that few people read often grant the manufacturer broad rights to store, analyze, and even sell anonymized versions of that data. (B) Users generally assume this information belongs to them, since it is drawn directly from their own bodies. (C) This arrangement becomes especially troubling when health data influences decisions far beyond fitness, such as insurance premiums or employment screening.

The framing effect becomes especially consequential in public health communication, where the stakes of a misunderstood message can be severe. (A) Campaigns that frame vaccination as an opportunity to protect ninety-five percent of recipients from a disease tend to generate calm, sustained interest, since the message emphasizes what individuals stand to gain. (B) By contrast, campaigns that frame the same behavior negatively, warning that failure to act will result in a specific number of preventable illnesses, tend to provoke stronger short-term compliance, though sometimes at the cost of inducing anxiety rather than genuine understanding. (C) Public health officials must therefore weigh not only whether a message is factually accurate but also whether its emotional framing serves the audience's long-term well-being.

For this reason, many economists argue that the real challenge is not the robots themselves, but the speed at which society is expected to adapt to them. Factories that once employed hundreds of workers on an assembly line now run with a fraction of that staff, as robotic arms handle tasks that used to require human hands. ( ① ) Economists have long debated whether this shift destroys jobs or simply transforms them. ( ② ) Historical evidence offers some comfort: previous waves of automation eventually created new categories of work that no one had predicted. ( ③ ) However, critics point out that earlier transitions unfolded over generations, giving workers time to retrain, whereas today's robots are being deployed at a pace that leaves little room for adjustment. ( ④ ) A factory worker displaced this year cannot simply wait for a new industry to emerge decades from now. ( ⑤ )

주어진 문장: In other words, memory is not a fixed archive but an ever-changing record that is rewritten each time it is accessed. For much of the twentieth century, memory researchers assumed that once a memory had been consolidated—transformed from a fragile, short-term trace into a stable, long-term representation—it remained essentially fixed, immune to further modification unless the underlying neural circuitry was physically damaged. ( ① ) This assumption, however, was overturned by a body of research demonstrating that the act of retrieval itself can destabilize a previously consolidated memory, rendering it temporarily susceptible to alteration before it is, in a sense, filed away again. ( ② ) During this narrow window, which typically lasts only a few hours, the memory can be strengthened, weakened, or even subtly distorted by new information encountered in the interim, after which it must undergo a second round of stabilization, a process now widely referred to as reconsolidation. ( ③ ) Consequently, what we experience as a stable recollection may actually be a continuously revised construction, ( ④ ) reshaped every time it is summoned into conscious awareness and returned to storage. ( ⑤ )

Scarcity cues of this kind are becoming increasingly common across online retail platforms, appearing on everything from hotel bookings to concert tickets. A shopper browsing an online store notices that a particular item is marked as "only three left in stock." ( ① ) Before seeing this notice, the shopper had regarded the item with only mild interest, uncertain whether it was worth purchasing at all. ( ② ) After seeing the notice, however, the same shopper suddenly feels a pressing urge to complete the purchase before the remaining stock disappears, even though nothing about the item itself has changed. ( ③ ) This shift in urgency illustrates how scarcity cues can transform hesitation into immediate action within moments. ( ④ ) Retailers are well aware of this dynamic, which is why such notices frequently appear even when actual stock levels are difficult for customers to verify independently. ( ⑤ ) Whether the stated scarcity is genuine or exaggerated, its psychological effect on the shopper's behavior remains remarkably similar.