영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Economists traditionally measured a community's wealth in terms of factories, income, or infrastructure, yet sociologists increasingly point to a less visible resource: social capital, the networks of trust and reciprocity ①that allow people to cooperate for mutual benefit. Robert Putnam popularized the concept by ②documenting a decline in civic participation, noting that fewer Americans joined bowling leagues, parent associations, or local clubs even as bowling itself remained popular, a trend he ③captured in the phrase bowling alone. Communities rich in social capital tend to enjoy lower crime and more effective local government, because neighbors ④who know and trust one another can coordinate informally without relying entirely on formal institutions. However, social capital is not uniformly beneficial; tightly bonded networks can also exclude outsiders and ⑤reinforcing existing inequality.

When people face a difficult decision, they often weigh not only the expected outcome of each option but also how painful it would feel ①to discover later that a different choice had been better. This anticipation of future regret, rather than the size of the potential loss itself, frequently becomes the dominant factor ②shaping the final decision. Investors, for example, sometimes continue holding a declining stock rather than ③selling it, not because they expect the price to recover, but because selling would force them to confront the possibility ④of having made a clear mistake. Researchers have found that people feel sharper regret over losses that resulted from taking action than over identical losses that resulted from doing nothing, which ⑤help explain why so many individuals default to inaction whenever a decision feels uncertain.

Structural functionalism approaches society as a complex system of ①interdependent parts, each contributing to the overall stability and smooth operation of the whole, much as organs contribute to the survival of a biological body. Sociologist Talcott Parsons argued that institutions such as the family, education, religion, and government each perform necessary functions, socializing new members and transmitting values, so that removing or weakening any one institution ②stabilizes the equilibrium of the entire system. Robert Merton refined this framework by distinguishing manifest functions, the intended and openly recognized consequences of a social practice, from latent functions, ③unintended consequences that nonetheless help sustain the system, such as schools serving not only to educate but also to provide childcare that allows parents to work. Critics have long charged that functionalism, by emphasizing stability and equilibrium, struggles to explain social ④conflict and rapid change, since it tends to interpret persistent inequality as somehow functional for society rather than as a problem requiring ⑤correction.

Imagine two travelers preparing for the same trip: one ①agrees to fly after watching news coverage of a recent plane crash, while the other books a flight without hesitation. Statistically, air travel remains far ②safer than driving the same distance by car, yet vivid, emotionally charged images tend to ③dominate human judgment more powerfully than dry statistics ever could. This tendency, in which people estimate how likely an event is based on how easily examples come to mind rather than on actual data, quietly shapes countless everyday decisions. News broadcasts that repeatedly feature rare disasters can leave viewers convinced that such events are ④common, even though official records clearly show the opposite. Advertisers and politicians alike ⑤exploit this pattern, knowing that a single striking anecdote often persuades audiences more effectively than pages of careful statistics ever manage to.

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.

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.

When a resource is shared among many users, none of whom bears the full cost of its depletion, _______________. This dynamic, famously labeled the tragedy of the commons, describes how shared pastures and fisheries can be degraded even when every participant privately understands the danger of overuse. A single herder who adds one more animal to a communal pasture gains the entire benefit of that addition, whereas the resulting damage to the grass is shared among other herders who depend on the land. Because self-interest offers no incentive to restrain consumption unilaterally, the resource tends to be exhausted long before any user intends such an outcome. For decades, economists assumed that only two remedies existed: strict regulation or the conversion of shared resources into private property. Elinor Ostrom challenged this assumption, however, by documenting communities that had sustainably managed fisheries and forests for generations through locally devised rules and mutual monitoring rather than external control.

Social media platforms rarely show users a neutral stream of information. Instead, recommendation algorithms are optimized to maximize engagement, and content that provokes strong emotion tends to hold attention longer than balanced reporting ever could. Some platforms have experimented with reducing the visibility of outrage-driven content, only to see user engagement drop, which reveals _______________.

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.

These institutions frequently begin the process with what Goffman termed a mortification of self, removing personal possessions and erasing markers of prior status so that recruits can be rebuilt according to institutional expectations. Socialization is the lifelong process through which individuals absorb the norms, values, and roles that allow them to function within a society. ( ① ) Most of this process unfolds gradually and is barely noticed by the people experiencing it. ( ② ) Resocialization, by contrast, refers to a deliberate and often abrupt process in which an individual is stripped of a previous identity and trained to adopt a new set of norms, typically within what sociologist Erving Goffman called a total institution, such as a military academy, prison, or monastery. ( ③ ) While resocialization can help individuals adapt to demanding new roles, critics note that total institutions can also produce lasting psychological strain. ( ④ ) This strain often results from severing the very social ties that once anchored a person's sense of self. ( ⑤ )