영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

When sociologist Émile Durkheim studied suicide rates across different societies, he noticed something ①puzzling: 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 ②to behave. Durkheim called this state of normlessness anomie, arguing that rapid social change can strip away the moral guidelines ③what regulate human desire, leaving individuals disoriented even when material conditions improve. Decades later, Robert Merton extended the concept to explain deviance within stable societies, ④proposing that anomie also arises when a culture insists that everyone pursue identical goals. Faced with this gap between aspiration and opportunity, some individuals conform, but others turn to innovation, ritual, retreat, ⑤or rebellion.

Conventional economic wisdom holds that more options are always preferable to fewer, since a larger set of alternatives increases the likelihood that any individual will find one that precisely ①matches their preferences. Empirical research on consumer behavior, however, complicates this assumption considerably. When shoppers are presented with an extensive array of choices, they frequently experience heightened anxiety about making the wrong selection and, paradoxically, ②become less likely to make any purchase or decision at all. This phenomenon, commonly ③called choice overload, arises because evaluating numerous alternatives demands considerable cognitive effort, and the fear of forgoing a superior but unexamined option can overwhelm the pleasure of selecting from a limited set. Furthermore, individuals who do eventually choose from an overwhelming array often ④reports lower satisfaction with their selection than those who chose from a modest handful of options. Businesses that recognize this dynamic have begun deliberately ⑤curating smaller, carefully selected assortments.

Social unrest does not always emerge from the poorest conditions; it frequently erupts when circumstances are improving but not quickly enough to satisfy ①rising expectations. This paradox lies at the heart of relative deprivation theory, which holds that discontent arises less from objective hardship than from a ②perceived gap between what people expect and what they actually receive. Political scientist Ted Gurr illustrated the pattern with what is often called the J-curve: revolutions tend to follow a period of sustained improvement that is then followed by a sudden ③reversal, leaving citizens feeling suddenly cheated of gains they had come to regard as their due. Because the theory centers on perception rather than raw statistics, it helps explain why relatively prosperous societies can experience ④intense protest while societies mired in long-standing poverty sometimes remain comparatively ⑤turbulent, having adjusted their expectations to match a bleak and unchanging reality.

Sociologist Karl Mannheim argued that individuals who come of age during the same historical period tend to share a ①distinctive outlook shaped by the events, technologies, and crises that defined their formative years, a phenomenon he called a generational unit. Because each generation absorbs its foundational assumptions during adolescence and early adulthood, later generations raised amid different circumstances often develop noticeably ②identical values regarding work, authority, and communication, even within the same family. This divergence ③produces what is commonly called a generational gap, most visible when older members of a household interpret a younger relative's habits as a rejection of tradition. Mannheim cautioned against viewing either generation as simply right or wrong, insisting instead that each generation's worldview reflects a ④coherent response to the particular historical conditions it encountered, conditions that inevitably ⑤differ from those faced by earlier and later 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 _______________.

Political philosophers have long debated how much authority, if any, a government may legitimately claim over free individuals. Robert Nozick imagined a hypothetical starting point in which people live without any state at all, each relying on private arrangements to protect their own person and property. He argued that a minimal state, limited strictly to enforcing contracts and protecting citizens from violence, theft, and fraud, could arise gradually through a series of voluntary exchanges, without anyone's rights ever being violated along the way. Critics on one side, the anarchists, insist that even this minimal government inevitably violates the rights of those who never consented to join it. Critics on the other side argue that a state limited to bare protection cannot address deeper inequalities that arise naturally in any free market. Nozick's thought experiment therefore _______________.

Two drivers, equally distracted by their phones, run a red light in exactly the same careless manner. (A) Although both drivers behaved identically and made exactly the same reckless choice, society judges them very differently: one faces criminal charges and lifelong guilt, while the other receives, at most, a minor traffic ticket. (B) Philosophers call this troubling asymmetry moral luck, since factors entirely outside a person's control end up determining how severely we judge their moral character. (C) By pure chance, a child happens to be crossing the street in front of one driver but not the other, and the first driver kills the child while the second drives through safely.

Time travel to the past has long fascinated physicists and philosophers alike, but it also generates a famously troubling contradiction. (A) The story therefore loops endlessly, undermining itself at every turn rather than settling into any stable outcome. (B) If the grandfather never had children, the traveler themselves would never have been born, and could never have existed to make the trip in the first place; yet if the traveler never made the trip, the grandfather would have survived to meet the grandmother after all. (C) Suppose a traveler journeyed backward in time and, through some combination of accident and intention, prevented their own grandfather from ever meeting their grandmother.

The reason, he insisted, lies outside the speaker's mind entirely, in the actual chemical composition of the substance being referred to. Imagine a distant planet identical to Earth in every visible respect, except that the clear liquid its inhabitants call "water" is not H2O but a different compound, XYZ, that happens to look, taste, and behave exactly the same. ( ① ) When an Earthling and a Twin Earthling each say the word "water," they seem to mean the same thing, since neither could tell the substances apart without a chemistry lab. ( ② ) Philosopher Hilary Putnam used this scenario to argue that the meaning of a word is not determined solely by what happens inside a speaker's head. ( ③ ) Even though the two speakers hold identical thoughts and mental images when they use the word, their statements refer to two different substances. ( ④ ) Meaning, Putnam concluded, depends partly on the world outside the mind, not merely on the private mental states of whoever happens to be speaking. ( ⑤ )

This prospect raises a philosophical question that medicine alone cannot answer. 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. ( ① ) As the technology improves, some developers envision a future in which brain-computer interfaces extend beyond restoring lost function toward enhancing healthy minds. ( ② ) They imagine offering faster memory or expanded attention to anyone willing to undergo the procedure. ( ③ ) If a device can alter memory, mood, or decision-making, at what point does the assistance stop being a tool and start reshaping the very identity of the person using it? ( ④ ) Neuroethicists argue that mental privacy may need to be recognized as a fundamental right before this technology becomes widespread. ( ⑤ )