영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

The ancient puzzle known as the ship of Theseus asks a deceptively simple question. If every plank of a wooden ship ①is replaced one by one over many years, is the vessel that eventually results still the same ship it once was? Most people's first instinct is to answer yes, since each individual replacement seems too small to ②erasing the ship's identity. The puzzle grows far sharper, however, once a second twist is introduced. Suppose a careful collector gathered every discarded plank and reassembled them into a second vessel, ③built exactly as the original once stood. Two ships would then exist side by side, each with an equal claim ④to being the genuine one, and no obvious way to decide between them. Philosophers return to this old story again and again, not because they care about timber, but because it forces us to ask whether identity depends on continuous material, continuous form, or some deeper thread that neither one can fully ⑤explain.

Two patients diagnosed with the same disease and prescribed the same medication can respond in strikingly different ways, one ①recovering quickly while the other experiences little benefit or even harmful side effects. Precision medicine starts from the observation that this variation often traces back to differences ②buried in each patient's genome, differences that determine how efficiently a body absorbs, breaks down, or responds to a given drug. By sequencing a patient's DNA before treatment begins, doctors can increasingly predict which medication is likely to work best and at what dose, ③replaced a strategy once described as one-size-fits-all with something closer to a tailored fit. This approach has proven especially valuable in cancer treatment, where tumors from two patients with the same diagnosis may carry entirely different genetic mutations ④that respond to entirely different drugs. Widespread adoption still faces real obstacles, since genetic sequencing remains expensive in many regions and few doctors have been trained ⑤to interpret the flood of genetic data such tests now produce.

Emissions trading, a market-based mechanism for ①curbing greenhouse gases, allows governments to set an overall limit on carbon output while letting firms trade permits within that limit. Under this system, ②known as cap-and-trade, companies that cut emissions more cheaply than required can sell surplus allowances to firms facing higher reduction costs. Proponents argue that this flexibility lets society reach a given environmental target at the lowest overall cost, since abatement shifts toward whoever can ③achieve it most economically. Critics, however, ④contends that trading schemes frequently allocate too many permits, a flaw that has historically depressed carbon prices and blunted incentives to invest in cleaner technology. For example, early phases of several regional markets granted allowances so generously that permit prices collapsed, ⑤leaving polluters with little pressure to change their practices.

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, yet a pattern that ①persists with remarkable consistency across surveys. This tendency, known as overconfidence bias, leads investors ②to trade more frequently than a more cautious assessment of their own skill would justify. Extensive research comparing the trading records of numerous individual accounts has demonstrated that investors who trade most frequently ③tends to earn substantially lower returns than those who trade rarely, largely because transaction costs accumulate and because frequent trading often reflects overconfident reactions to short-term noise rather than genuine insight. Overconfidence also manifests in the tendency to underestimate the range of possible outcomes, ④causing investors to concentrate their holdings in a small number of assets they feel certain about rather than diversifying across a broader portfolio. Paradoxically, then, the very confidence that motivates investors to act decisively often ⑤undermines the outcomes they are trying to achieve.

Classical economic theory assumes that consumers evaluate every price change in the same ①rational way, weighing marginal benefit against marginal cost regardless of the absolute numbers involved. Behavioral economists, however, have discovered a ②striking exception: the moment a price drops to exactly zero, people's judgment shifts in a way that ordinary discounting cannot explain. In a well-known laboratory experiment, participants chose between two chocolates, one of higher quality priced at a small fee and one of lower quality offered for free. When both prices were merely reduced by the same amount, most participants still ③avoided the higher-quality option. Yet once the cheaper chocolate's price was lowered to zero, the majority ④abruptly switched their preference, even though the price gap between the two options had not actually changed. Researchers explain this reversal by noting that a free item carries no perceived risk of loss, which makes it feel disproportionately ⑤attractive compared with any option that still requires payment, however small.

Scientists have long searched for a way to describe, in a single coherent framework, the outer limits within which human activity can safely continue without ①stabilizing the planet's fundamental systems. The concept of planetary boundaries, introduced by earth-system researchers, identifies nine interconnected processes, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and nitrogen pollution, each possessing a threshold beyond which abrupt and ②irreversible change becomes likely. Unlike conventional environmental limits, often defined locally, these boundaries are framed at a planetary scale, reflecting the idea that the Earth functions as a single ③interdependent system rather than a collection of isolated regions. Crossing one boundary, proponents argue, does not merely damage the system involved but can also ④destabilize 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 are drawn with more ⑤confidence than the data can support.

People routinely seek out information that confirms what they already believe while overlooking or dismissing evidence that contradicts those beliefs, a pattern known as confirmation bias. Investors who believe a particular company will succeed tend to interpret ambiguous news about that company favorably, while skeptical investors interpret identical news unfavorably, even though both groups are examining the same underlying facts. Correcting for this bias therefore requires deliberate effort, since the mind offers no natural signal indicating that its search for information has been ___________ rather than balanced.

Symbolic interactionism approaches society not as a fixed structure imposed from above but as something continuously constructed through everyday face-to-face interaction, in which individuals interpret and respond to the symbolic meanings that objects, actions, and other people hold for them. (C) Erving Goffman extended this framework with his dramaturgical approach, comparing social life to a theatrical performance in which individuals manage impressions and present different faces in different settings. (B) Sociologist George Herbert Mead argued that the self itself emerges through this interactive process, as individuals learn to see themselves from the perspective of others. (A) Unlike structural theories that emphasize large institutions, symbolic interactionism focuses on the small, repeated exchanges through which shared meaning is negotiated.

Yet the objective probability of survival in both scenarios is, of course, mathematically identical. Framing effects appear with particular force in decisions involving risk and uncertainty. ( ① ) When physicians describe a treatment option in terms of a survival rate, patients tend to view the treatment favorably and are more inclined to proceed. ( ② ) When the very same statistic is instead presented as a mortality rate, patient enthusiasm for the identical treatment drops noticeably. ( ③ ) This asymmetry persists even among physicians themselves, who might be expected to evaluate probabilities more analytically than the general public. ( ④ ) The persistence of this bias among trained professionals suggests that framing effects operate below the level of deliberate reasoning, influencing judgment before conscious analysis even begins. ( ⑤ ) Understanding this tendency allows communicators to present information more responsibly, regardless of which frame ultimately proves more persuasive.

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.