영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Blockchain technology was originally promoted as a way ①to remove the need for trusted middlemen, allowing strangers to exchange value directly and verify transactions through a shared, tamper-resistant ledger rather than through a bank or government agency. In theory, this design ②distributes power away from any single institution and toward the network as a whole. In practice, however, a small number of large players have come to dominate many blockchain networks, ③controlled enough computing power or currency to influence outcomes that were supposed to be decided collectively. Critics note a further irony: when something goes wrong, there is often no institution left ④to appeal to, since the entire system was designed precisely to eliminate that kind of central authority. Whether decentralization can survive this concentration of power ⑤remains one of the technology's most unresolved questions.

A rational approach to decision-making dictates that only future costs and benefits should influence a choice, since resources already spent ①cannot be recovered regardless of what is decided next. In practice, however, people routinely allow such irrecoverable expenditures, known as sunk costs, ②to shape their subsequent decisions, a pattern referred to as the sunk cost fallacy. A moviegoer who finds a film thoroughly disappointing after the first thirty minutes will often remain in the theater until the credits roll, ③reasoning that leaving early would somehow waste the money already spent on the ticket. Organizations exhibit the same fallacy on a larger scale: a company that ④have invested heavily in a failing project frequently continues funding it, arguing that abandoning the project now would render the prior investment meaningless. Yet continuing to invest in a venture destined to fail merely adds new losses to old ones, ⑤compounding the very waste the decision-makers hoped to avoid.

People routinely seek out information that confirms what they already believe while ①overlooking or dismissing evidence that contradicts those beliefs, a pattern known as confirmation bias. This tendency operates not because individuals are deliberately dishonest, but because the mind finds it cognitively less ②taxing to absorb information that fits an existing framework than to reconstruct that framework from scratch. Investors who believe a particular company will succeed, for instance, tend to interpret ambiguous news about that company ③unfavorably, while investors who are skeptical of the same company interpret identical news unfavorably, even though both groups are examining the same underlying facts. Social media platforms can ④intensify this effect by algorithmically presenting users with content similar to what they have previously engaged with. Over time, such selective exposure can harden initial impressions into convictions that feel objectively verified, even though they rest on a systematically ⑤filtered sample of evidence.

The discovery of CRISPR gene-editing technology gave scientists a tool precise enough to correct a single mistaken letter in the human genome. Yet editing a gene in a sperm, egg, or early embryo does not simply change one patient; it alters the genetic code passed down to every future generation. Scientific organizations around the world have therefore drawn a careful line, permitting gene editing to treat disease in existing patients while banning any edit that would be inherited by their descendants. Critics worry, however, that _______________.

City governments increasingly market dense networks of surveillance cameras as a safety upgrade. Yet the same infrastructure that catches criminals also creates a permanent record of where ordinary citizens go about their daily lives. Once a camera network exists, its purpose can quietly expand, often without new public debate. Civil liberties groups argue that _______________.

Classical economic models typically assume that people discount future rewards at a constant rate. Empirical observation, however, reveals a different pattern: people apply a much steeper discount to the immediate future than to the distant future, a phenomenon termed hyperbolic discounting. This dynamic helps explain chronic procrastination, since tasks that carry long-term benefits are perpetually deferred in favor of activities offering ___________ satisfaction.

Millions of people now wear devices that continuously track their heart rate, sleep patterns, and daily activity, generating an intimate stream of health data. (A) In practice, however, the terms of service that few people read often grant the manufacturer broad rights to store, analyze, and even sell anonymized versions of that data. (B) Users generally assume this information belongs to them, since it is drawn directly from their own bodies. (C) This arrangement becomes especially troubling when health data influences decisions far beyond fitness, such as insurance premiums or employment screening.

A few years ago, spotting a manipulated video required a trained eye and specialized software. (A) Perhaps more troubling than any single fake video is the broader effect on public trust, sometimes called the liar's dividend, in which genuine footage can be dismissed as fabricated simply because deepfakes exist. (B) Today, freely available applications allow almost anyone to swap a face or fabricate a voice convincingly enough to fool casual viewers within minutes. (C) This shift has quietly undermined one of the oldest assumptions in human communication: that seeing and hearing something is a reliable way to confirm it happened.

주어진 문장: The comparison, notably, is not with reality but with an imagined alternative that may never have been as good as it seems in retrospect. Modern consumer culture often assumes that expanding the range of available options will automatically make people freer and happier, yet a growing body of research suggests the opposite may sometimes be true. ( ① ) When individuals select from an enormous set of alternatives, satisfaction with the final choice frequently declines rather than rises, even when the chosen item is objectively excellent. ( ② ) This decline stems not from the difficulty of deciding but from what happens afterward, once a decision has already been made. ( ③ ) Having considered so many possibilities, a person naturally imagines the specific advantages that a different, unchosen option might have offered, and this imagined comparison quietly erodes contentment with what was actually selected. ( ④ ) By contrast, someone who chose from only two or three alternatives rarely constructs such an elaborate fantasy of missed advantages. ( ⑤ ) The paradox, therefore, is that abundance can free people from external constraint while simultaneously trapping them in a private cycle of comparison and regret.

For this reason, many economists argue that the real challenge is not the robots themselves, but the speed at which society is expected to adapt to them. Factories that once employed hundreds of workers on an assembly line now run with a fraction of that staff, as robotic arms handle tasks that used to require human hands. ( ① ) Economists have long debated whether this shift destroys jobs or simply transforms them. ( ② ) Historical evidence offers some comfort: previous waves of automation eventually created new categories of work that no one had predicted. ( ③ ) However, critics point out that earlier transitions unfolded over generations, giving workers time to retrain, whereas today's robots are being deployed at a pace that leaves little room for adjustment. ( ④ ) A factory worker displaced this year cannot simply wait for a new industry to emerge decades from now. ( ⑤ )