영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

A cricket contains, gram for gram, roughly as much protein as beef, yet requires a small fraction of the land, water, and feed ①needed to raise cattle. This efficiency has drawn growing attention from researchers ②looking for ways to feed a global population that continues to climb while arable land remains essentially fixed. Insects also convert feed into body mass with remarkable efficiency, since they are cold-blooded and therefore ③spend far less energy regulating body temperature than a cow or pig must. Despite these advantages, insect protein has struggled to gain acceptance in many cultures, where the idea of eating insects triggers a reflexive disgust that no nutritional argument alone seems ④able to overcome. Food companies have responded by grinding insects into a flour that disappears into protein bars, pasta, and baked goods, ⑤let consumers benefit from the nutrition without ever having to look an insect in the eye.

Marketers have long recognized that perceived scarcity, the sense that a product or opportunity ①are available only in limited quantity or for a limited time, can dramatically increase its desirability, even when the item's intrinsic qualities remain entirely unchanged. This phenomenon, known as the scarcity effect, operates on a simple psychological principle: when something appears difficult to obtain, people tend ②to infer that it must be valuable, since truly worthless items rarely generate genuine competition for possession. A retailer who labels a product as "limited edition" or displays a countdown timer beside a discounted offer exploits this inference, ③prompting customers to make hurried purchase decisions they might otherwise postpone or reconsider. Experimental studies confirm that identical products ④are rated as more desirable and often command higher prices when framed as scarce than when the same products are presented as widely and continuously available. The effect intensifies further when scarcity is attributed to high demand rather than to limited supply alone, since competition from other buyers ⑤introduces an additional layer of urgency absent from mere supply constraints.

Individuals confronted with a set of options frequently default to whichever alternative requires no active decision at all. Decision-makers often treat the current arrangement as a reasonable ①baseline simply because it already exists, even when switching would plainly serve their interests better. When employees must actively opt into a retirement savings plan, participation rates remain stubbornly ②low; yet when the same plan is presented as automatic unless an employee opts out, participation rises ③dramatically, despite the fact that the underlying financial terms are identical in both cases. Two forces appear to drive this asymmetry: first, the cognitive effort required to evaluate alternatives and initiate change, and second, an aversion to the potential regret that might follow an active decision that turns out poorly. Because inaction carries no such vivid regret, the status quo comes to feel ④riskier than it objectively is, illustrating how mere inertia can ⑤masquerade as a deliberate preference.

A liver no longer has to sit inside a human body to be studied closely. By coaxing stem cells to organize themselves within a nutrient-rich gel, scientists can now grow miniature three-dimensional structures called organoids, which reproduce much of the architecture and function of a real organ. Unlike flat cultures grown on a plastic dish, organoids let cells interact in three dimensions much as they would inside the body, yielding tissue that behaves in strikingly realistic ways. This fidelity has made organoids invaluable for testing how a drug affects human tissue before any patient is exposed, _______________. Some laboratories have even grown organoids from a single patient's own cells, raising the possibility of trialing a treatment on a miniature copy of that patient's organ before committing to an actual course of therapy.

A plastic bag that fully decomposes within months rather than lingering for centuries sounds almost too convenient to be real, yet certain bioplastics on the market do exactly that under the right conditions. Unlike conventional plastic, derived almost entirely from petroleum, many bioplastics are synthesized from renewable feedstocks such as corn starch or sugarcane, sometimes with the help of bacteria engineered to produce plastic-like polymers as a byproduct of their metabolism. Not every bioplastic biodegrades quickly, however, and some marketed as eco-friendly break down only in industrial composting facilities that reach conditions rarely found in a backyard compost heap or the open ocean. _______________. Researchers are now exploring bioplastics made from agricultural waste and algae instead of dedicated crops, hoping to sidestep this competition for land while preserving the benefits that first made bioplastics appealing.

When people encounter an individual who appears to memorize enormous quantities of specialized information effortlessly, they often assume that person possesses an innate gift. Cognitive psychologists, however, contend that such feats rarely stem from raw talent alone. Instead, such feats arise from _______________. A landmark study of chess players demonstrated this principle. When shown a board arranged according to plausible game positions, grandmasters reproduced the layout perfectly. Yet when the same pieces were scattered randomly, their performance collapsed to the level of novices. This pattern reveals that expert memory is not larger in raw capacity but is instead organized around patterns accumulated through years of deliberate practice. If chunking, rather than innate aptitude, underlies expert performance, then educators should stop treating talent as fixed and destiny-bound. Curricula ought to be redesigned to cultivate pattern recognition explicitly, since doing so would grant far more students access to expertise once presumed reserved for the naturally gifted.

Few ideas in policy debate provoke as much philosophical unease as the notion that a government might deliberately steer citizens toward better choices while leaving every option technically available. Defenders insist that freedom is preserved as long as no option is banned and no penalty is attached. Critics counter that this defense rests on an impoverished notion of liberty, one that ignores how _______________. The dispute ultimately turns on what freedom actually requires: the mere absence of coercion, or a decision-making process that remains transparent and undistorted.

The eventual collapse of a speculative bubble often unfolds with surprising speed compared with the gradual climb that preceded it. (A) As prices begin to fall, investors who bought near the peak, motivated largely by fear of missing further gains, are often the first to sell, since they have the least conviction in the asset's underlying value. (B) Their selling triggers further price declines, which in turn prompt additional investors to sell out of a newly urgent fear of continued loss rather than a fear of missing out. (C) This reversal illustrates that the same herd psychology driving prices upward can just as easily reverse direction, converting collective optimism into collective panic within a remarkably short period.

This evidentiary standard, ironically, has made behavioral interventions more rigorously tested than many of the traditional programs they were designed to complement. Government adoption of behavioral insights has generally been governed by a strict evidentiary standard: officials demand proof that a proposed intervention works before authorizing its use. ( ① ) This demand led to the routine use of randomized controlled trials, in which a proposed change is tested on a small population before being rolled out more broadly. ( ② ) Such trials allow policymakers to determine with reasonable confidence whether an intervention produces the intended effect before committing significant public resources to it. ( ③ ) Many long-standing government programs, by contrast, were implemented decades ago without ever being subjected to comparably rigorous evaluation. ( ④ ) Behavioral units within government have, as a result, gradually earned a reputation for evidence-based rigor that extends well beyond their original, narrow mandate. ( ⑤ ) That reputation has, in turn, given behavioral approaches an outsized voice in policy discussions relative to their still-modest budgets.

Because the donkey is assumed to be a perfectly rational creature that always chooses the option supported by the strongest reason, it finds itself, in this case, with no rational basis for choosing either pile. Medieval philosophers told the story of a hungry donkey placed exactly midway between two identical, equally fragrant piles of hay, with no factor whatsoever tipping the balance toward either option. ( ① ) Neither pile offers any advantage over the other. ( ② ) Paralyzed by this perfect symmetry, the donkey starves to death precisely because it can find no reason to move in either direction. ( ③ ) Critics of the story point out that real animals, and real humans, rarely face situations of such flawless symmetry. ( ④ ) Even a tiny, arbitrary preference, they note, is usually enough to break the tie in practice. ( ⑤ ) The paradox nevertheless raises a serious question about whether purely rational deliberation can ever generate action on its own.