영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Marketers have long recognized that perceived scarcity, the sense that a product or opportunity ①are available only in limited quantity or for a limited time, can dramatically increase its desirability, even when the item's intrinsic qualities remain entirely unchanged. This phenomenon, known as the scarcity effect, operates on a simple psychological principle: when something appears difficult to obtain, people tend ②to infer that it must be valuable, since truly worthless items rarely generate genuine competition for possession. A retailer who labels a product as "limited edition" or displays a countdown timer beside a discounted offer exploits this inference, ③prompting customers to make hurried purchase decisions they might otherwise postpone or reconsider. Experimental studies confirm that identical products ④are rated as more desirable and often command higher prices when framed as scarce than when the same products are presented as widely and continuously available. The effect intensifies further when scarcity is attributed to high demand rather than to limited supply alone, since competition from other buyers ⑤introduces an additional layer of urgency absent from mere supply constraints.

Military researchers have developed weapons systems ①capable of identifying and engaging targets without a human pressing the final button, a prospect that has ②alarmed arms control experts for over a decade. Advocates within defense agencies argue that autonomous systems can react faster than any human operator and may even reduce casualties by removing fear and fatigue from split-second decisions. Human rights organizations counter that removing a person from the final decision ③strip away moral responsibility at the exact moment it matters most, since a machine cannot be held accountable in any meaningful sense. Diplomatic negotiations toward an international treaty have repeatedly ④stalled, partly because military powers disagree on how to define autonomy precisely enough to regulate it. Meanwhile, the underlying technology continues to advance regardless of ⑤whether the diplomacy meant to govern it keeps pace.

Hospitals are increasingly adopting artificial intelligence tools that can scan medical images and flag potential tumors faster and, in some trials, more accurately than experienced radiologists. Patients understandably welcome any technology that catches disease earlier, yet the growing reliance on these tools raises an uncomfortable legal question that hospitals ①have only begun to address. When an AI system misses a diagnosis that a human doctor would likely ②have caught, responsibility becomes difficult to assign. The doctor may argue that they simply trusted a tool the hospital ③required them to use, the hospital may argue that the software company guaranteed its accuracy, and the software company may argue that no algorithm can ④expect to be perfect. Until legal systems clarify this chain of responsibility, patients harmed by an algorithmic error may find themselves with no clear party ⑤to hold accountable.

A cricket contains, gram for gram, roughly as much protein as beef, yet requires a ①substantial fraction of the land, water, and feed needed to raise cattle. 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. Insects also convert feed into body mass with ②remarkable efficiency, since they are cold-blooded and therefore spend far less energy regulating body temperature than a cow or pig must. Despite these advantages, insect protein has struggled to gain ③acceptance in many cultures, where the idea of eating insects triggers a reflexive disgust that no nutritional argument alone seems able to overcome. Food companies have responded by grinding insects into a flour that disappears into protein bars, pasta, and baked goods, letting consumers ④benefit from the nutrition without ever having to look an insect ⑤in the eye.

Social media platforms rarely show users a neutral stream of information. Instead, recommendation algorithms are ①optimized to maximize engagement, and content that provokes strong emotion, particularly outrage, tends to hold attention longer than balanced reporting ever could. Over time, users exposed to a steady diet of emotionally charged content may come to believe that extreme opinions are far more ②common than they actually are, simply because those opinions dominate their feed. Researchers describe this as a ③distorted mirror: the platform reflects not society as it truly is, but a version shaped by whatever keeps people scrolling. Some platforms have experimented with reducing the visibility of outrage-driven content, only to see user engagement ④drop, which reveals an uncomfortable truth about the underlying business model. This ⑤confirms that emotionally extreme content plays little role in keeping the platform profitable.

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.

A cotton plant that manufactures its own insecticide sounds like science fiction, yet it has been growing in fields around the world for decades. Scientists achieved this by isolating a gene from a soil bacterium that produces a protein toxic to specific insect pests but harmless to humans, then inserting that gene into the plant's own genome so that every cell manufactures the protective protein. _______________. Supporters point to yield increases and reduced pesticide spraying documented across millions of hectares, while critics worry about weeds and insects evolving resistance to these built-in defenses over time, much as bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics. Regulatory agencies in most countries now require extensive testing before a genetically modified crop reaches the market, evaluating everything from its nutritional content to its potential effects on nearby ecosystems.

As more schools shift toward digital textbooks and online assignments, a student without reliable internet access at home faces a disadvantage that has little to do with talent or effort. (A) That assumption is increasingly being reconsidered, particularly as more essential services, from job applications to medical appointments, move online by default. (B) Some policymakers initially treated internet access as a convenience, comparable to cable television, rather than as infrastructure essential to modern life. (C) Closing this divide will require more than simply distributing devices; it will demand sustained investment in the physical networks that carry information into every home.

When people look back on a multi-day journey, they rarely recall every hour with equal clarity; instead, memory tends to compress the entire experience into just a few representative moments. Psychologists have found that two points carry disproportionate weight in this process: the single moment when emotion reached its highest intensity, and whatever happened right before the experience concluded. (A) Even though both hikers faced comparable hardship overall, the second is far more likely to remember the journey fondly, simply because the trip ended pleasantly. This pattern reveals that overall satisfaction is not calculated as an average of every experienced moment, but is shaped disproportionately by whichever moments felt most intense and by however the experience happened to end. (B) The first finishes with a grueling, rain-soaked final climb, while the second enjoys a calm, scenic descent on the last afternoon despite having endured an equally difficult ascent earlier in the trip. (C) Consider two hikers who complete an identical five-day trek.

Every time a smartphone connects to a cell tower or a Wi-Fi network, it quietly records a data point that can later be pieced together into a detailed map of where its owner has been. (A) Companies often argue that anonymized data cannot be traced back to individuals, yet researchers have repeatedly shown that a handful of location points is enough to identify a specific person. (B) Most users agree to this tracking without reading the fine print, assuming that a single company's database poses little threat. (C) The real danger, however, emerges when location data from multiple sources is combined, revealing a person's home, workplace, and daily route.