영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Conventional economic wisdom holds that more options are always preferable to fewer, since a larger set of alternatives increases the likelihood that any individual will find one that precisely ①matches their preferences. Empirical research on consumer behavior, however, complicates this assumption considerably. When shoppers are presented with an extensive array of choices, they frequently experience heightened anxiety about making the wrong selection and, paradoxically, ②become less likely to make any purchase or decision at all. This phenomenon, commonly ③called choice overload, arises because evaluating numerous alternatives demands considerable cognitive effort, and the fear of forgoing a superior but unexamined option can overwhelm the pleasure of selecting from a limited set. Furthermore, individuals who do eventually choose from an overwhelming array often ④reports lower satisfaction with their selection than those who chose from a modest handful of options. Businesses that recognize this dynamic have begun deliberately ⑤curating smaller, carefully selected assortments.

Prospect theory proposes that the subjective value of money is not a straight line but a curved function, ①differing sharply from the assumptions of classical economic models. In the domain of gains, the function bends downward as amounts ②increase, so the psychological difference between earning zero and one hundred dollars feels far greater than between earning one thousand and eleven hundred. A parallel pattern appears among losses, where the curve ③bend in the opposite direction, yet sensitivity still fades as the amount grows larger. This tendency, ④known as diminishing sensitivity, explains why a shopper barely notices a ten dollar increase on a two thousand dollar purchase. Researchers illustrate this curvature with graphs ⑤shaped like an S turned sideways, sloping gently near the center and flattening toward both extremes.

Socialization is the lifelong process through which individuals absorb the norms, values, and roles that allow them to function within a society, beginning in the family and continuing through schools, peer groups, and workplaces. Most of this process unfolds ①gradually and is barely noticed by the people experiencing it. Resocialization, by contrast, refers to a ②deliberate 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. These institutions frequently begin the process with what Goffman termed a mortification of self, ③preserving personal possessions and erasing markers of prior status so that recruits can be rebuilt according to institutional expectations. While resocialization can help individuals ④adapt to demanding new roles, critics note that total institutions can also produce lasting psychological strain by ⑤severing the very social ties that once anchored a person's sense of self.

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 ①fluent to anyone outside. From the perspective of a native speaker reading the responses, the room seems to understand Chinese ②perfectly. Yet the man inside understands nothing at all; he is merely manipulating shapes according to formal rules, without grasping their ③meaning. This scenario was designed to challenge the assumption that a computer running a sophisticated program truly ④fails to understand 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 syntax alone can never generate ⑤semantics.

When people look back on a multi-day journey, they ①rarely 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 ②disproportionate weight in this process: the single moment when emotion, whether joy or discomfort, reached its highest intensity, and whatever happened right before the experience concluded. Consider two hikers who complete an identical five-day trek. The first finishes with a ③grueling, 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. Even though both hikers faced comparable hardship overall, the second is far ④less 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; rather, it is shaped disproportionately by whichever moments felt most ⑤intense and by however the experience happened to end.

Biodegradable plastics have been promoted as a ①promising solution to plastic waste, since they are designed to decompose into natural substances rather than persist for centuries. Manufacturers derive these materials from renewable resources such as corn starch, blending them with additives that ②accelerate microbial breakdown once discarded. However, their environmental benefits are often exaggerated, largely because decomposition depends on specific conditions rarely found outside industrial composting facilities. 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 ③high. In addition, when mixed with conventional plastics in recycling streams, they can ④contaminate the process, weakening the quality of materials produced afterward. Some engineers therefore compare biodegradable plastics to a bridge that leads nowhere unless paired with infrastructure that completes the journey. Ultimately, realizing their ⑤genuine potential requires not only technological refinement but also facilities capable of providing the precise conditions decomposition demands.

Anyone who has ever promised to finish a project "by Friday," only to still be working on it weeks later, has experienced the planning fallacy firsthand. This term describes the persistent tendency of individuals and organizations to underestimate how long a task will take, how much it will cost, and how many complications will inevitably arise. What makes this bias particularly stubborn is that awareness of past failures rarely leads to more accurate predictions; a construction firm that finished its last three projects late will often insist, with genuine confidence, that this next project will be different. Researchers argue that planners focus almost exclusively on the specific steps of the current task while ignoring the broader statistical record of similar projects that came before. One proposed remedy, known as reference class forecasting, requires planners to deliberately consult outcomes from comparable past projects rather than relying solely on their own optimistic intuition. Until such external correction becomes standard practice, _______________.

Desalination, the process of removing dissolved salts from seawater to produce fresh water, has increasingly been adopted by coastal regions facing chronic water scarcity. 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 consumes far less energy than the thermal distillation once dominant in the industry, it has become the preferred choice for large-scale plants. Nevertheless, _______________. For instance, the process generates a concentrated 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 worsen 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 broader conservation strategy.

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

Bourdieu argued that habitus allows privilege to reproduce itself across generations without any explicit coercion, since children raised in advantaged households absorb the tastes and manners that institutions such as elite schools implicitly reward, while children from other backgrounds may find the same institutions subtly unfamiliar. French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu introduced the concept of habitus to describe the deeply ingrained dispositions, tastes, and ways of perceiving the world that individuals absorb through years of socialization within a particular social class. ( ① ) Habitus operates below conscious awareness, shaping everything from posture and accent to preferences in food, art, and leisure. ( ② ) A person's habitus feels entirely natural even though it was produced by specific social conditions. ( ③ ) Because habitus feels like personal identity rather than social conditioning, individuals rarely recognize how thoroughly their preferences have been shaped by class position. ( ④ ) This helps explain why social mobility, though officially open to all, remains statistically far more common in theory than in lived practice. ( ⑤ )