영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Scientists have long searched for a way to describe, in a single coherent framework, the outer limits within ①which human activity can safely continue without destabilizing the planet's fundamental systems. The concept of planetary boundaries, ②introduced by earth-system researchers, identifies nine interconnected processes, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and nitrogen pollution, each ③possessing a threshold beyond which abrupt and irreversible change becomes likely. Unlike conventional environmental limits, often defined locally, these boundaries are framed at a planetary scale, ④reflecting the idea that the Earth functions as a single interdependent system rather than a collection of isolated regions. Crossing one boundary, proponents argue, does not merely damage the system involved but can also destabilize others, since climate, oceans, and land are bound together by feedback loops that transmit disturbance across the system. Some philosophers have likened this framework to a ship's safe operating margin, within which passengers may move freely without risking the vessel's stability. Critics, however, contend that the boundaries ⑤is drawn with more confidence than the data can support.

Even highly capable individuals can make disastrous collective decisions once they are absorbed into a tightly knit group, a phenomenon psychologist Irving Janis termed groupthink. Within cohesive committees, boards, and advisory councils, members often prioritize consensus and group harmony over a rigorous evaluation of alternatives, ①silencing doubts rather than risking the discomfort of dissent. Janis identified several warning signs, including an illusion of invulnerability that leads a group to ②underestimate risk, pressure on dissenters to fall in line, and self-appointed mindguards who ③shield the group from information that might disrupt its confidence. Sociologists extend this analysis beyond small committees, noting that entire organizations can develop cultures that ④punish conformity and reward employees who raise inconvenient questions. Historical inquiries into policy failures frequently reveal that critical information existed within the organization but never reached decision makers, because no one felt ⑤safe enough to voice it aloud.

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 ①unlimited and disposal as if costless. A circular economy proposes an alternative framework in which materials are kept in continuous use through reuse, repair, and recycling, thereby ②reducing 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 ③increase the environmental damage caused by mining. Consequently, the circular economy is increasingly regarded as a ④viable economic strategy that ⑤conserves resources for future generations.

When sociologist Émile Durkheim studied suicide rates across different societies, he noticed something puzzling: rates rose not only during economic depression but also during sudden prosperity. He concluded that both crises share a common feature, the collapse of shared norms that once told individuals what to expect and how to behave. Decades later, Robert Merton extended the concept to explain deviance within stable societies, proposing that anomie also arises when a culture insists that everyone pursue identical goals, such as wealth, while denying many people the legitimate means to achieve them. Faced with this gap between aspiration and opportunity, _______________. Anomie theory therefore suggests that crime is less a product of individual failure than of structural imbalance within society itself.

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. 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. 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 _______________. 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. However, critics contend that the technology remains prohibitively expensive and that building pipelines requires investments few companies make voluntarily. Despite such concerns, many governments continue funding pilot projects, convinced that this technology will play an indispensable role in reaching emission targets.

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. Robert Putnam popularized the concept by documenting a decline in civic participation, a trend he captured in the phrase bowling alone. 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. However, _______________. For this reason, researchers increasingly distinguish between bonding capital, which strengthens ties within a single group, and bridging capital, which connects otherwise separate communities.

For decades, most vaccines worked by injecting a weakened or inactivated version of a pathogen, coaxing the immune system into recognizing an enemy it had never fought. mRNA vaccines take a different route, delivering a short genetic instruction wrapped in a protective lipid capsule, one that tells the body's own cells how to manufacture a 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 builds a defense, without ever having encountered the actual pathogen. Because the vaccine contains no live virus and cannot alter a cell's own DNA, _______________. This speed, first proven on a global scale during a recent pandemic, has convinced many researchers that the same platform could eventually be adapted to fight diseases far beyond infectious illness.

A liver no longer has to sit inside a human body to be studied closely. (A) Unlike flat cultures grown on a plastic dish, which lose many of the cues that guide normal development, organoids let cells interact in three dimensions much as they would inside the body, yielding tissue that behaves in strikingly realistic ways. (B) This fidelity has made organoids invaluable for testing how a drug affects human tissue before any patient is exposed, and 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. (C) 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.

Sociologist William Ogburn observed that when a society undergoes technological change, its material culture tends to advance faster than its nonmaterial culture, meaning norms, laws, and values, a gap he termed cultural lag. (A) A contemporary example can be found in genetic testing, which now allows individuals to learn detailed information about inherited disease risk well before most legal systems have settled questions about its use. (C) The rise of the automobile, for instance, transformed daily mobility long before traffic laws, insurance systems, and urban planning fully adapted to the risks it introduced. (B) Cultural lag theory reminds us that technological progress is not automatically matched by social progress, and that the resulting gap can produce confusion until laws and customs adjust.

Émile Durkheim insisted that sociology could become a genuine science only if it identified a distinct subject matter that could not be reduced to individual psychology. (A) Language, currency, legal codes, and religious ritual all qualify as social facts, since a person is born into these systems already fully formed and must conform to them regardless of personal preference. (B) He termed this subject matter social facts, defined as ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that exist outside any single individual yet exert a coercive influence over that individual's behavior. (C) Durkheim insisted that social facts should be studied as things, meaning they must be examined empirically through observable patterns such as statistics.