영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Extended producer responsibility, a policy ①requiring 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 ②discard them, rather than leaving municipalities to absorb the cost. Advocates maintain that shifting this burden onto producers creates a powerful incentive to design products that are more durable, easily ③disassembled, and readily recyclable from the outset. Critics counter that the policy, whatever its theoretical merits, often fails to reduce waste meaningfully unless ④paired 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 ⑤determine whether producers actually change behavior.

For decades, most vaccines worked by ①injecting a weakened or inactivated version of a pathogen, coaxing the immune system into recognizing an enemy it had never truly fought. mRNA vaccines take a fundamentally different route, ②delivering only a short genetic instruction wrapped in a protective lipid capsule, one that tells the body's own cells how to manufacture a single harmless piece of a virus's outer surface protein. Once those cells display the fragment, the immune system learns to recognize it as foreign and ③builds a defense, without ever having encountered the actual pathogen. Because the vaccine contains no live virus and cannot alter a cell's own DNA, developers can redesign the genetic instructions within weeks whenever a pathogen ④mutating, rather than starting the years-long process required for traditional vaccines. This speed, first proven on a global scale during a recent pandemic, has convinced many researchers that the same platform could eventually ⑤be adapted to fight diseases far beyond infectious illness, including certain cancers.

Biodegradable plastics have been promoted as a ①promising solution to plastic waste, since they are designed to decompose into natural substances rather than persist for centuries. Manufacturers derive these materials from renewable resources such as corn starch, blending them with additives that ②accelerate microbial breakdown once discarded. However, their environmental benefits are often exaggerated, largely because decomposition depends on specific conditions rarely found outside industrial composting facilities. For example, a bag labeled biodegradable may take years, not the weeks advertised, to break down in a landfill or ocean, where temperature and microbial activity remain ③high. In addition, when mixed with conventional plastics in recycling streams, they can ④contaminate the process, weakening the quality of materials produced afterward. Some engineers therefore compare biodegradable plastics to a bridge that leads nowhere unless paired with infrastructure that completes the journey. Ultimately, realizing their ⑤genuine potential requires not only technological refinement but also facilities capable of providing the precise conditions decomposition demands.

Economists have long debated whether prosperity and environmental quality are fundamentally opposed, or whether the relationship between them changes shape as an economy matures. The Environmental Kuznets Curve, a hypothesis borrowed from earlier theories of income inequality, proposes that _______________. In its early stages, industrializing nations prioritize output over conservation, treating clean air and water as expendable costs of development to be addressed later. Beyond a certain point, however, rising incomes generate both the technological capacity and the political will to demand stricter regulation, so degradation begins to reverse even as production keeps expanding. Some scholars regard this trajectory as a reassuring paradox, suggesting that the very growth blamed for ecological harm may eventually finance its own repair. Critics, by contrast, argue that the curve rests on a narrow selection of pollutants that happen to decline with wealth, while ignoring greenhouse gases and resource depletion, which show no comparable tendency to fall.

Traditional industrial systems have relied on a linear model of production, in which raw materials are extracted, transformed into goods, and eventually discarded as waste. This approach treats natural resources as if unlimited and disposal as if costless. A circular economy proposes an alternative framework in which _______________, thereby reducing the extraction of virgin resources. Central to this model is the notion that waste, rather than being an inevitable byproduct, can be redesigned as a resource for another process, much as fallen leaves nourish the trees that shed them. For example, manufacturers design products so that components can be disassembled and reused in new items once their original function ends. Some companies also lease equipment instead of selling it outright, retaining responsibility for refurbishment. Because such practices lessen dependence on finite raw materials, they reduce the environmental damage caused by mining. Consequently, the circular economy is increasingly regarded as a viable economic strategy that conserves resources for future generations.

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. Because the donkey is assumed to be a perfectly rational creature that always chooses the option supported by the strongest reason, and because neither pile offers any advantage over the other, the donkey supposedly finds itself with no rational basis for choosing one pile rather than the other. Paralyzed by this perfect symmetry, the donkey starves to death precisely because it can find no reason to move in either direction. Critics of the story point out that _______________.

A cricket contains, gram for gram, roughly as much protein as beef, yet requires a small fraction of the land, water, and feed needed to raise cattle. (A) Insects also convert feed into body mass with remarkable efficiency, since they are cold-blooded and therefore spend far less energy regulating body temperature than a cow or pig must. (B) This efficiency has drawn growing attention from researchers looking for ways to feed a global population that continues to climb while arable land remains essentially fixed. (C) Despite these advantages, insect protein has struggled to gain acceptance in many cultures, so food companies have responded by grinding insects into a flour that disappears into protein bars, pasta, and baked goods.

A hamburger patty need not come from a slaughtered animal at all if a small sample of muscle cells can be persuaded to multiply inside a steel tank. (A) Inside a bioreactor, the cells multiply across scaffolding designed to encourage them to align into fibers, gradually thickening into something that begins to resemble muscle tissue rather than a shapeless clump of cells. (B) Cultured meat begins with a biopsy of animal muscle tissue, from which scientists isolate cells capable of dividing repeatedly, then feed those cells a nutrient broth that supplies the sugars, proteins, and minerals an animal's bloodstream would normally provide. (C) Supporters argue that because the process never requires raising and slaughtering a whole animal, it could shrink the land, water, and greenhouse gas emissions associated with conventional meat production, though skeptics counter that producing the specialized broth at scale remains prohibitively expensive.

주어진 문장: In simple terms, this process prevents carbon dioxide from ever reaching the atmosphere in the first place. As efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions intensify, industries unable to eliminate carbon dioxide from their processes have turned to a technology known as carbon capture and storage. ① This technology involves separating carbon dioxide from the exhaust of power plants before it is released into the atmosphere, then transporting the captured gas for underground injection. ② Once injected into porous rock formations, the gas is trapped beneath layers of impermeable rock that prevent it from escaping into the air. Proponents argue that carbon capture and storage functions as a bridge technology, allowing heavy industries to keep operating while more sustainable alternatives are developed. ③ For instance, cement and steel production, both of which release carbon dioxide as an unavoidable byproduct of chemical reactions, are considered prime candidates for this approach. ④ However, critics contend that the technology remains prohibitively expensive and that building pipelines requires investments few companies make voluntarily. ⑤ Despite such concerns, many governments continue funding pilot projects, convinced that this technology will play an indispensable role in reaching emission targets. ① ② ③ ④ ⑤

Robert Putnam popularized the concept by documenting a decline in civic participation, noting that fewer Americans joined bowling leagues, parent associations, or local clubs even as bowling itself remained popular, a trend he captured in the phrase bowling alone. Economists traditionally measured a community's wealth in terms of factories, income, or infrastructure, yet sociologists increasingly point to a less visible resource: social capital, the networks of trust and reciprocity that allow people to cooperate for mutual benefit. ( ① ) Communities rich in social capital tend to enjoy lower crime and more effective local government, because neighbors who know and trust one another can coordinate informally without relying entirely on formal institutions. ( ② ) However, social capital is not uniformly beneficial. ( ③ ) Tightly bonded networks can also exclude outsiders and reinforce existing inequality. ( ④ ) For this reason, researchers increasingly distinguish between bonding capital, which strengthens ties within a single group, and bridging capital, which connects otherwise separate communities. ( ⑤ )