영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

People often recognize, in calm reflection, that their future selves will be tempted to ①abandoning a goal they currently value. Rather than relying solely on willpower at the critical moment, they may choose to restrict their own future options in advance, a strategy ②known as precommitment. By making certain choices costly, inconvenient, or impossible to reverse, individuals can protect a long-term goal from a short-term impulse that has not yet ③arisen. A person hoping to save money might lock funds into an account that penalizes early withdrawal, removing the very temptation that would otherwise be difficult to ④resist. Similarly, someone ⑤determined to finish a project might publicly announce a deadline, transforming private intentions into a commitment that carries social consequences if broken.

Classical economic models typically assume that people discount future rewards at a constant rate, ①valuing a reward received later somewhat less than an identical reward received now. Empirical observation, however, reveals a different pattern: people apply a much steeper discount to the immediate future than to the distant future, a phenomenon ②termed hyperbolic discounting. This inconsistency explains why an individual might sincerely resolve tonight to wake up early and exercise tomorrow, only to postpone the plan once tomorrow actually arrives and the immediate discomfort of getting out of bed ③become vivid and present. When the reward or cost in question lies safely in the future, its emotional weight remains muted, ④allowing rational long-term goals to dominate one's stated intentions. Once that same reward or cost draws near, however, its immediacy triggers a disproportionately strong emotional pull, frequently ⑤overriding the very plans made earlier with such apparent confidence.

Marketers have long recognized that perceived scarcity, the sense that a product or opportunity is available only in limited quantity or for a limited time, can dramatically increase its ①desirability, even when the item's intrinsic qualities remain entirely unchanged. This phenomenon, known as the scarcity effect, operates on a simple psychological principle: when something appears ②easy to obtain, people tend to infer that it must be valuable, since truly worthless items rarely generate genuine competition for possession. A retailer who labels a product as "limited edition" or displays a countdown timer beside a discounted offer exploits this inference, prompting customers to make ③hurried purchase decisions they might otherwise postpone or reconsider. Experimental studies confirm that identical products are rated as more desirable and often command ④higher prices when framed as scarce than when the same products are presented as widely and continuously available. Consumers who later reflect calmly on such purchases frequently discover that the item's actual usefulness fell well short of the ⑤urgency they experienced at the moment of decision.

Emissions trading, a market-based mechanism for curbing greenhouse gases, allows governments to set an overall limit on carbon output while letting firms trade permits within that limit. Under this system, known as cap-and-trade, companies that cut emissions more ①cheaply than required can sell surplus allowances to firms facing higher reduction costs. Proponents argue that this flexibility lets society reach a given environmental target at the ②lowest overall cost, since abatement shifts toward whoever can achieve it most economically. Critics, however, contend that trading schemes frequently allocate too many permits, a flaw that has historically ③depressed carbon prices and blunted incentives to invest in cleaner technology. For example, early phases of several regional markets granted allowances so generously that permit prices ④collapsed, leaving polluters with little pressure to change their practices. Consequently, many economists now advocate combining trading with a price floor, a minimum permit price that keeps the market from collapsing during weak demand, thereby ⑤undermining the cost-effectiveness for which trading is valued.

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.

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, ①tamper-resistant ledger rather than through a bank or government agency. In theory, this design distributes 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 ②dominate many blockchain networks, controlling enough computing power or currency to influence outcomes that were supposed to be decided collectively. Critics note a further irony: when something goes wrong, such as a hacked exchange or a lost password, there is often ③ample institutional support to appeal to, since the entire system was designed precisely to eliminate that kind of central authority. Whether decentralization can ④survive this concentration of power remains one of the technology's most ⑤unresolved questions.

Social mobility refers to the movement of individuals or families between different positions within a society's system of stratification, whether upward, downward, or sideways. Sociologists distinguish intragenerational mobility, changes within a single person's lifetime, from intergenerational mobility, differences between the social position of parents and their children. A society is often judged by how much intergenerational mobility it ①permits, since high mobility suggests that outcomes depend more on effort and ability than on the ②accident of birth. Structural mobility, caused by large-scale economic shifts such as the growth of new industries, must be distinguished from individual mobility, which results from a single person's particular choices. Research across many nations has found that education functions as the primary channel of upward mobility, yet access to quality education is itself ③evenly distributed, meaning the very mechanism meant to promote ④fairness can end up ⑤reproducing the inequality it was designed to overcome.

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 destabilizing 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 irreversible 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 interdependent system rather than a collection of isolated regions. Crossing one boundary, proponents argue, _______________, 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 confidence than the data can support.

Where structural functionalism emphasizes cooperation and stability, conflict theory begins from the premise that society is best understood as an ongoing struggle between groups with competing interests over scarce resources such as wealth, power, and prestige. (C) Later sociologists broadened the framework well beyond economic class, applying conflict analysis to struggles organized around race, gender, and other categories of unequal social power. (A) Rooted in the writings of Karl Marx, classical conflict theory focused on the economic struggle between those who own productive resources and those who must sell their labor to survive. (B) Unlike functionalists, who often interpret existing social arrangements as serving a necessary purpose, conflict theorists argue that apparent social order frequently masks underlying tension that dominant groups actively work to contain.

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. (A) However, critics point out that earlier transitions unfolded over generations, giving workers time to retrain, whereas today's robots are being deployed much faster. (B) Historical evidence offers some comfort: previous waves of automation eventually created new categories of work that no one had predicted. (C) A factory worker displaced this year, therefore, cannot simply wait for a new industry to emerge decades from now.