영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Sensors buried in the soil now report moisture levels in real time, drones survey entire fields for signs of disease within minutes, and automated systems adjust irrigation without a farmer ever ①walking the rows. For large operations with the capital ②to invest, these tools have measurably increased yields while reducing water waste, addressing two problems that traditional farming has struggled with for generations. Smaller family farms, however, often cannot afford the upfront cost of this equipment, and some worry that the gap between high-tech and traditional operations will only ③widen as the technology advances further. There is also a quieter cultural cost that rarely appears in productivity reports: generations of farming knowledge, passed down through direct observation of soil, weather, and crops, risk ④being replaced by dashboards and automated alerts that few young farmers ⑤teaching to question.

Individuals confronted with a set of options frequently default to whichever alternative requires no active decision at all. Decision-makers often treat the current arrangement as a reasonable ①baseline simply because it already exists, even when switching would plainly serve their interests better. When employees must actively opt into a retirement savings plan, participation rates remain stubbornly ②low; yet when the same plan is presented as automatic unless an employee opts out, participation rises ③dramatically, despite the fact that the underlying financial terms are identical in both cases. Two forces appear to drive this asymmetry: first, the cognitive effort required to evaluate alternatives and initiate change, and second, an aversion to the potential regret that might follow an active decision that turns out poorly. Because inaction carries no such vivid regret, the status quo comes to feel ④riskier than it objectively is, illustrating how mere inertia can ⑤masquerade as a deliberate preference.

As private companies develop the technology to mine asteroids for rare metals and water, a legal question once confined to science fiction has suddenly become ①urgent: who, if anyone, owns the resources of outer space? Existing international treaties state that no nation may claim sovereignty over celestial bodies, but they say remarkably ②little about whether a private company may extract and sell what it finds there. Some governments have already passed domestic laws granting their own companies rights to material mined in space, a move that other nations view as a ③collective attempt to settle a question that should be decided collectively. Supporters of space mining argue that new resources could ④ease shortages on Earth and fund further exploration, while critics ⑤warn that treating space as an open frontier for extraction risks repeating the same mistakes that colonization caused on Earth.

A liver no longer has to sit inside a human body to be studied closely. By coaxing stem cells to organize themselves within a nutrient-rich gel, scientists can now grow miniature three-dimensional structures called organoids, which reproduce much of the architecture and function of a real organ. Unlike flat cultures grown on a plastic dish, organoids let cells interact in three dimensions much as they would inside the body, yielding tissue that behaves in strikingly realistic ways. This fidelity has made organoids invaluable for testing how a drug affects human tissue before any patient is exposed, _______________. Some laboratories have even grown organoids from a single patient's own cells, raising the possibility of trialing a treatment on a miniature copy of that patient's organ before committing to an actual course of therapy.

A biosensor works by pairing a biological component, such as an enzyme or antibody, with an electronic device that converts a biological reaction into a signal a computer can read. When the target molecule binds to the biological component, it triggers a small measurable change that the device translates into a readable number. This design has already transformed diabetes management, letting patients monitor blood sugar continuously through a small sensor worn under the skin rather than pricking a finger several times a day. Engineers are now racing to extend the same principle to detect subtler targets, from cancer cells circulating in the bloodstream to trace contaminants in drinking water. _______________.

Every time an antibiotic kills off a population of bacteria, a handful of cells carrying a random mutation that resists the drug are left behind to multiply without competition. Repeated over decades, across hospitals, farms, and households worldwide, this simple process of natural selection has produced strains of bacteria that survive treatments once considered reliably effective. _______________. Researchers are therefore searching in unconventional places, screening soil microbes, ocean sediment, and even genetic databases for molecules that kill bacteria through mechanisms resistant strains have not yet learned to evade. Some scientists have also revived an older approach, using viruses that infect only bacteria to hunt down resistant strains with a precision no broad-spectrum drug could ever match.

Suppose a mysterious being with a near-perfect track record of predicting human choices presents a player with two boxes. (A) The player may choose to take only Box B, or to take both boxes, and the prediction has already been made and cannot change. (B) Box A always contains a visible thousand dollars, while Box B contains either a million dollars or nothing at all, depending on a prediction the being made before the game even began. (C) One line of reasoning says taking both boxes is strictly better, since whatever is already inside the boxes cannot be altered by the player's choice at this point, while a second line of reasoning says taking only Box B is better, given the being's near-perfect accuracy.

Two patients diagnosed with the same disease and prescribed the same medication can respond in strikingly different ways, one recovering quickly while the other experiences little benefit or even harmful side effects. (A) This approach has proven especially valuable in cancer treatment, where tumors from two patients with the same diagnosis may carry entirely different genetic mutations that respond to entirely different drugs, though widespread adoption still faces real obstacles, since genetic sequencing remains expensive in many regions. (B) By sequencing a patient's DNA before treatment begins, doctors can increasingly predict which medication is likely to work best and at what dose, replacing a strategy once described as one-size-fits-all with something closer to a tailored fit. (C) Precision medicine starts from the observation that this variation often traces back to differences buried in each patient's genome, differences that determine how efficiently a body absorbs, breaks down, or responds to a given drug.

A single fertilized egg eventually gives rise to every cell type in the human body, from neurons to bone, a feat that has fascinated biologists for more than a century. (A) Because harvesting these cells traditionally required destroying a human embryo, the research provoked ethical objections fierce enough to slow funding and legislation in several countries for years. (B) A breakthrough arrived when scientists discovered that ordinary adult skin cells could be reprogrammed into a state resembling embryonic versatility without ever touching an embryo, opening a path for stem cell research that far more scientists and funding agencies are now willing to support. (C) Embryonic stem cells retain much of that original versatility, capable in principle of developing into almost any tissue, which is why researchers have long viewed them as a promising raw material for repairing damaged organs.

Several cities have already reported cases in which an innocent person was detained based on a flawed match. Facial recognition software has moved rapidly from airport security lines into shopping malls, schools, and even private apartment buildings, promising convenience in exchange for a quick scan of one's face. ( ① ) Proponents note that the technology can unlock doors, catch shoplifters, and speed up identity checks far faster than any human guard could manage. ( ② ) Independent studies, however, have repeatedly found that many commercial systems perform less accurately on women and people with darker skin tones. ( ③ ) This gap can lead to wrongful identification with serious real-world consequences. ( ④ ) Until these systems can prove equally reliable for everyone, critics argue, deploying them at all represents a form of quiet discrimination dressed up as efficiency. ( ⑤ )