영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Classical economic theory assumes that consumers ①evaluate every price change in the same rational way, weighing marginal benefit against marginal cost regardless of the absolute numbers involved. Behavioral economists, however, have discovered a striking exception: the moment a price drops to exactly zero, people's judgment ②shift in a way that ordinary discounting cannot explain. In a well-known laboratory experiment, participants chose between two chocolates, one of higher quality ③priced at a small fee and one of lower quality offered for free. When both prices were merely ④reduced by the same amount, most participants still preferred the higher-quality option. Yet once the cheaper chocolate's price was lowered to zero, the majority abruptly switched their preference, even though the price gap between the two options had not actually ⑤changed.

Eyewitness testimony ①has long carried weight in courtrooms, yet decades of research reveal that memories of witnessed events are more malleable than most people assume. When individuals who observe an event ②are later exposed to misleading information about what they saw, whether through a leading question or a conversation with another witness, their recollections frequently incorporate details that never occurred, a phenomenon known as the misinformation effect. In one classic paradigm, participants who watched a video of a traffic accident and ③were then asked how fast the cars were going when they smashed into each other reported higher speed estimates and were more likely to falsely recall broken glass than participants asked the identical question using the milder verb hit. Crucially, these distorted memories often feel genuine to the person experiencing them, since the original memory trace ④become blended with the newly introduced information rather than existing as a separate, contradictory record. Such findings ⑤have prompted legal systems to adopt cautious interviewing protocols designed to minimize suggestive questioning during investigations.

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.

A striking proportion of individual investors believe their own stock-picking ability to be above average, a statistical impossibility given that only half of any population can genuinely outperform the rest. This tendency, known as overconfidence bias, leads investors to trade more frequently than a more cautious assessment of their own skill would justify. Paradoxically, then, the very confidence that motivates investors to act decisively often undermines the outcomes they are trying to achieve, since ___________ frequently produces worse results than a more modest, diversified strategy.

Sensors buried in the soil now report moisture levels in real time, and automated systems adjust irrigation without a farmer ever walking the rows. For large operations with the capital to invest, these tools have measurably increased yields while reducing water waste. Smaller family farms, however, often cannot afford the upfront cost of this equipment, and some worry that _______________.

Desalination, the process of removing dissolved salts from seawater to produce fresh water, has increasingly been adopted by coastal regions facing chronic water scarcity. Most modern facilities rely on reverse osmosis, a technique in which seawater is forced through membranes whose microscopic pores block salt while letting water molecules pass. Because this method consumes far less energy than the thermal distillation once dominant in the industry, it has become the preferred choice for large-scale plants. Nevertheless, _______________. For instance, the process generates a concentrated byproduct called brine, which, when discharged without adequate dilution, can raise local salinity to levels that harm marine life. Pumping seawater through membranes at high pressure also demands substantial electricity, so plants powered by fossil fuels can worsen the emissions that intensify drought. Therefore, engineers increasingly argue that desalination should be treated not as a stand-alone remedy but as one component of a broader conservation strategy.

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. (A) However, critics point out that earlier transitions unfolded over generations, giving workers time to retrain, whereas today's robots are being deployed much faster. (B) Historical evidence offers some comfort: previous waves of automation eventually created new categories of work that no one had predicted. (C) A factory worker displaced this year, therefore, cannot simply wait for a new industry to emerge decades from now.

When people face a difficult decision, they often weigh not only the expected outcome of each option but also how painful it would feel to discover later that a different choice had been better. (A) Researchers have found that people feel sharper regret over losses that resulted from taking action than over identical losses that resulted from doing nothing. (B) Investors, for example, sometimes continue holding a declining stock rather than selling it, because selling would force them to confront the possibility of having made a clear mistake. (C) This helps explain why so many individuals default to inaction whenever a decision feels uncertain, even when remaining passive is not actually the safer choice.

주어진 문장: This asymmetry is troubling precisely because, in reality, risk and benefit are often unrelated or even inversely related. When people are asked to judge how risky or beneficial a particular technology is, they rarely conduct anything resembling a careful cost-benefit analysis. ( ① ) Instead, they consult a quick emotional impression, an instinctive sense of whether the technology feels good or feels bad, and let that impression guide their entire judgment. ( ② ) This mental shortcut, known as the affect heuristic, produces a curious pattern that traditional risk theory struggles to explain: activities people like tend to be judged as both safer and more beneficial, while activities they dislike are judged as both riskier and less beneficial, even when no logical relationship between risk and benefit exists. ( ③ ) For example, when researchers presented a fictional industrial chemical alongside a brief description emphasizing its convenience, participants rated it not only as more useful but also, illogically, as less dangerous. ( ④ ) Because emotional impressions form so rapidly and feel so trustworthy, correcting for this heuristic requires deliberate effort; simply presenting more accurate statistics to already anxious or enthusiastic audiences rarely changes their underlying judgment. ( ⑤ )

Scaling up in ambition, however, means scaling up in difficulty as well. A biosensor works by pairing a biological component, such as an enzyme or antibody, with an electronic device that converts a biological reaction into a signal a computer can read. ( ① ) When the target molecule, whether glucose in blood or a trace of a pathogen, binds to the biological component, it triggers a small measurable change that the device translates into a readable number. ( ② ) This design has already transformed diabetes management, letting patients monitor blood sugar continuously through a small sensor worn under the skin rather than pricking a finger several times a day. ( ③ ) Engineers are now racing to extend the same principle to detect subtler targets, from cancer cells circulating in the bloodstream to trace contaminants in drinking water. ( ④ ) The central challenge is not detecting the target but doing so reliably outside a controlled laboratory. ( ⑤ ) A sensor that performs well on a clean lab bench can behave erratically once exposed to a real body or a real river.