영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Suppose you meet a quiet, gentle man ①who speaks softly, tends a small garden, and organizes his bookshelf with meticulous care. ②Ask whether he is more likely a florist or a truck driver, most people instinctively choose florist, since his personality matches the stereotype so neatly. This judgment, however, ③ignores a crucial fact: truck drivers vastly outnumber florists in almost every country, which means that, statistically, he is far more likely to belong to the larger group regardless of how well he fits the flower-shop image. Relying on resemblance to a familiar category rather than on underlying numerical proportions, ④known among researchers as representativeness, leads people to overlook these base rates almost automatically. Even trained professionals, ⑤who should know better, often fall into the same trap when a vivid description feels more convincing than plain statistics.

Individuals confronted with a set of options frequently ①default to whichever alternative requires no active decision at all, a tendency scholars term the status quo bias. Rather than weighing the merits of each available choice afresh, decision-makers often treat the current arrangement as a reasonable baseline simply because it already exists, even when ②switching would plainly serve their interests better. This pattern becomes especially apparent in contexts where enrollment in a program ③depend on a default setting. When employees must actively opt into a retirement savings plan, participation rates remain stubbornly low; yet when the same plan is presented as automatic unless an employee opts out, participation rises dramatically, despite the fact that the underlying financial terms ④are identical in both cases. Two forces appear to drive this asymmetry: first, the cognitive effort required to evaluate alternatives, and second, an aversion to the potential regret that ⑤might follow an active decision that turns out poorly.

Financial markets occasionally experience episodes in which asset prices rise far beyond any level that careful analysis of underlying fundamentals could justify, a phenomenon commonly attributed to herd psychology. During such episodes, individual investors, observing that prices have already risen substantially, often conclude that continuing to buy is ①reasonable simply because so many others are doing the same, rather than because any independent evaluation supports the purchase. This dynamic can become self-perpetuating: rising prices attract new buyers, whose purchases push prices higher still, thereby attracting yet another wave of buyers convinced that the upward trend itself constitutes ②reliable evidence of underlying value. Historical episodes of speculative excess display a strikingly similar pattern, suggesting that the underlying psychological mechanism remains ③variable even as the specific assets involved change considerably across centuries. Eventually, however, some triggering event, however minor, prompts a portion of investors to ④reconsider their assumptions, and the resulting wave of selling can trigger a collapse every bit as rapid and self-reinforcing as the original ⑤ascent.

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.

A small bakery once sold a basic loaf of bread for three dollars and a premium loaf for six dollars, and most customers, uncertain about the added value of the pricier option, simply bought the ①cheaper one. The owner then introduced a third option: a slightly larger premium loaf priced at seven dollars, one that was clearly ②inferior to the six-dollar loaf in terms of value for money. Almost nobody chose the new seven-dollar loaf, yet sales of the six-dollar loaf ③fell sharply, because it now appeared to be an obvious bargain when placed beside the inferior newcomer. This pattern, confirmed across countless pricing experiments in other markets, demonstrates that people ④rarely judge options in isolation; instead, they evaluate choices relative to whatever alternatives happen to be nearby. Businesses have since learned to design such decoys deliberately, not expecting them to be purchased at all, but hoping they will make a specific target option look far more ⑤attractive by comparison.

The ancient puzzle known as the ship of Theseus asks a deceptively ①simple question. If every plank of a wooden ship is 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 ②small to erase the ship's identity. The puzzle grows far ③duller, however, once a second twist is introduced. Suppose a careful collector gathered every discarded plank and reassembled them into a second vessel, built exactly as the original once stood. Two ships would then exist side by side, each with an equal claim to being the ④genuine 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.

Consider a village green shared freely by every herder in the community, where each individual may graze as many animals as they wish without paying any fee. From the perspective of any single herder, adding one more animal to the shared pasture brings a clear personal benefit, since the extra income belongs entirely to that herder alone. The cost of the additional grazing, however, is spread thinly across every herder who uses the green, so no single individual bears more than a tiny fraction of the damage. Because this calculation favors adding more animals for every rational herder, the shared pasture is gradually overgrazed until it can no longer support any animals at all, harming the very community whose rational members caused the collapse. Philosophers use this scenario to illustrate _______________.

Classical economic theory long assumed that decision makers gather all relevant information, calculate every possible outcome, and select the single option that maximizes their benefit. Herbert Simon, however, questioned this assumption, arguing that human beings operate under real constraints of time, knowledge, and mental capacity that make such exhaustive calculation practically impossible. Instead of searching endlessly for the theoretically perfect choice, _______________, a strategy Simon termed satisficing. A shopper comparing refrigerators, for example, rarely examines every model available; she instead sets a few practical criteria, such as price and size, and selects the first appliance that satisfies them adequately.

Biodegradable plastics have been promoted as a promising solution to plastic waste, since they are designed to decompose into natural substances rather than persist for centuries. (A) For example, a bag labeled biodegradable may take years, not the weeks advertised, to break down in a landfill or ocean, where temperature and microbial activity remain low. In addition, when mixed with conventional plastics in recycling streams, they can contaminate the process, weakening the quality of materials produced afterward. (B) Some engineers therefore compare biodegradable plastics to a bridge that leads nowhere unless paired with infrastructure that completes the journey. Ultimately, realizing their genuine potential requires not only technological refinement but also facilities capable of providing the precise conditions decomposition demands. (C) Manufacturers derive these materials from renewable resources such as corn starch, blending them with additives that accelerate microbial breakdown once discarded. However, their environmental benefits are often exaggerated, largely because decomposition depends on specific conditions rarely found outside industrial composting facilities.

Retailers have discovered practical ways to counteract the negative effects of choice overload without simply reducing the number of products they offer. (A) One common strategy involves organizing an extensive product catalog into clearly labeled categories and subcategories, allowing customers to narrow their search gradually rather than confronting the entire array at once. (B) Another approach highlights a small number of curated recommendations, such as "staff picks" or "best sellers," giving hesitant customers a reasonable starting point without eliminating other options entirely. (C) Both strategies share a common principle: they do not reduce the objective number of choices available but instead reduce the cognitive burden of navigating them.