영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

John Rawls proposed an unusual thought experiment ①to determine what principles of justice a society ought to adopt. Imagine a group of rational people gathered to design the basic rules of their future society, but ②placed behind what he called a veil of ignorance, a condition under which none of them knows their own race, gender, wealth, talents, or social position in advance. Since no one can predict whether they will be born into privilege or poverty, each person ③has a strong incentive to choose rules that protect the worst-off members of society. Rawls argued that rational people placed in this position would not gamble on inequality; instead, they would favor arrangements that guarantee basic liberties for everyone and ④permitting unequal outcomes only when those outcomes actually benefit the least advantaged. Justice, on this view, is what impartial reasoning ⑤produces once self-interest is stripped away.

Suppose a mysterious being with a near-perfect track record of predicting human choices presents a player with two boxes. Box A always contains a visible thousand dollars, while Box B contains either a million dollars or nothing at all, depending on a prediction the being made before the game even began. If the being predicted the player would take only Box B, it ①emptied the box entirely; if it predicted the player would take both boxes, it left Box B empty. The player may choose to take only Box B, or to take both boxes, and the prediction has already been made and cannot change. One line of reasoning says taking both boxes is ②strictly better, since whatever is already inside the boxes cannot be altered by the player's choice at this point. A second line of reasoning says taking only Box B is better, since the being's near-perfect ③accuracy means that choosing both boxes almost guarantees an empty Box B. This apparent ④conflict between two seemingly sound arguments has made the puzzle a lasting ⑤challenge for decision theory.

Desalination, the process of removing dissolved salts from seawater to produce fresh water, has increasingly been adopted by coastal regions facing chronic water ①scarcity. 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 ②consumes far less energy than the thermal distillation once dominant in the industry, it has become the preferred choice for large-scale plants. Nevertheless, desalination remains an inherently costly and environmentally burdensome solution, a fact often overlooked amid enthusiasm for ending water shortages. For instance, the process generates a ③concentrated 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 ④alleviate 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 ⑤broader conservation strategy.

Imagine rewriting a bacterium's code the way a programmer edits a line of software, and much of what synthetic biology promises begins to make sense. Researchers in this field assemble standardized genetic parts into circuits that can be inserted into a cell, instructing it to perform a task that no natural organism would carry out. Because these circuits are built from interchangeable parts rather than designed from scratch each time, _______________. Critics note that biological systems rarely behave as predictably as electronic circuits, since a gene inserted into a new cell can interact with existing pathways in unexpected ways. Even so, as the catalog of standardized parts keeps expanding, engineers are gaining confidence to design increasingly complex systems.

Imagine a man locked inside a room who does not understand a single word of Chinese, yet who possesses a giant rulebook written entirely in English. Slips of paper covered with Chinese characters are passed in through a slot, and by following the rulebook's instructions step by step, he produces replies that appear fluent to anyone outside. From the perspective of a native speaker reading the responses, the room seems to understand Chinese perfectly. Yet the man inside understands nothing at all; he is merely manipulating shapes according to formal rules, without grasping their meaning. This scenario was designed to challenge the assumption that a computer running a sophisticated program truly understands language simply because it produces convincing output. Passing every external test of intelligence, the argument suggests, is not the same as possessing genuine understanding, since _______________.

When consumers compare two products and assume that the one labeled "eco-friendly" is automatically the more sustainable choice, they often overlook the complexity involved in verifying such a claim. Life cycle assessment, commonly abbreviated as LCA, _______________. This method examines raw material extraction, manufacturing, transportation, use, and disposal, compiling data on energy consumption and emissions generated at each stage. By tracing a product from its origin to its disposal, this approach reveals impacts that might otherwise remain hidden from consumers who see only the finished item on a shelf. For example, an electric vehicle may produce no emissions while being driven, yet the mining of metals for its battery can generate substantial environmental costs elsewhere. Without accounting for these earlier stages, a superficial comparison could mistakenly present the vehicle as entirely emission-free. Therefore, researchers increasingly rely on life cycle assessment to make informed decisions rather than trusting labels alone.

Bacteria have been cutting up invading viral DNA for billions of years, long before any scientist thought to borrow the trick for use in a laboratory. The CRISPR-Cas9 system relies on a short guide RNA that matches a specific DNA sequence, _______________. Once Cas9 arrives at the target site, it slices both strands of the DNA helix, and the cell's own repair machinery rushes in to mend the cut, often introducing a small change in the process. By supplying the cell with a template during this repair step, scientists can direct that machinery to insert a specific new sequence rather than merely disabling the original gene. What once required years of painstaking work to alter a single gene can now be accomplished within days.

Long before calculus existed, the Greek philosopher Zeno constructed a series of paradoxes designed to show that motion itself might be logically impossible. In one version, a swift runner named Achilles races a slow-moving tortoise that is given a modest head start. Common sense insists that Achilles will quickly overtake the tortoise, yet Zeno's argument suggests otherwise. By the time Achilles reaches the tortoise's starting point, the tortoise has crawled a little further ahead; by the time Achilles closes that new gap, the tortoise has advanced again, however slightly. This process repeats endlessly, generating _______________. Zeno concluded that Achilles could never actually catch the tortoise, a conclusion that plainly contradicts everyday experience.

As cities have expanded across landscapes once covered with absorbent soil, impervious surfaces have turned stormwater from a resource that recharges groundwater into a hazard that floods streets and carries pollutants into waterways. (A) For example, cities that replaced pavement with permeable alternatives have reported notable reductions in flooding during storms that once overwhelmed sewers. However, engineers caution that green infrastructure cannot entirely replace conventional pipes in dense cores, where heavy runoff still requires structural reinforcement. Consequently, municipalities now regard green and gray infrastructure as complementary systems, each compensating for the other's limitations. (B) Green infrastructure, which mimics the hydrological functions that natural landscapes once performed, offers planners a way to treat the city as a sponge rather than a rigid drainage pipe. (C) Rain gardens, shallow depressions planted with deep-rooted vegetation, are designed to capture runoff from rooftops, allowing it to filter slowly through soil before reaching underground aquifers. Permeable pavement, made of porous materials that let water pass directly through, serves a similar purpose along sidewalks, where asphalt would remain impenetrable.

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.