영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

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 ①attributed to herd psychology. During such episodes, individual investors, observing that prices have already risen substantially, often conclude that continuing to buy is reasonable simply because so many others ②are 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 ③attracting yet another wave of buyers convinced that the upward trend itself constitutes reliable evidence of underlying value. Historical episodes of speculative excess display a strikingly similar pattern, suggesting that the underlying psychological mechanism ④remain constant even as the specific assets involved change considerably across centuries. Eventually, however, some triggering event, however minor, prompts a portion of investors to reconsider their assumptions, and the resulting wave of selling can ⑤trigger a collapse every bit as rapid and self-reinforcing as the original ascent.

Working memory refers to the mental workspace in which information ①is temporarily held and manipulated while a person performs a cognitive task. Such tasks include solving an arithmetic problem, following a rapid conversation, or holding a phone number in mind before dialing it. In the mid-twentieth century, the psychologist George Miller proposed that this workspace could accommodate roughly seven discrete items. His claim proved so influential that it ②become widely known as the magic number seven. Subsequent research, however, revealed that Miller's estimate was somewhat generous, since it failed to account for the complexity of the material ③being remembered. Nelson Cowan later argued that when rehearsal strategies ④are prevented and attention is tightly controlled, genuine capacity hovers closer to four items rather than seven. This discrepancy suggests that what earlier studies had measured was not raw storage capacity itself but a hybrid quantity ⑤inflated by clever strategies. Contemporary psychologists therefore distinguish between the fixed limit of working memory and the flexible techniques that allow individuals to transcend that limit.

Change blindness refers to a striking limitation of human perception in which observers fail to notice substantial alterations to a visual scene, provided the change occurs ① during a brief disruption such as an eye movement or a momentary obstruction. In a now-famous demonstration, researchers showed ② participants two versions of a photograph in alternation, separated by a short blank screen, and asked them to identify what had changed. Even when an entire building disappeared or a person's clothing shifted color, many viewers stared at the picture without detecting ③ anything unusual. This phenomenon occurs because visual attention, rather than passively recording every detail like a camera, actively selects only a narrow subset of information for processing at any given moment. Whatever falls outside that narrow spotlight represents ④ only sparsely, if at all, leaving it vulnerable to being overwritten without notice. Consequently, change blindness demonstrates that our impression of a rich, complete visual world is, to a surprising extent, an illusion constructed ⑤ by the mind, not a faithful record of external reality.

People often recognize, in ①calm reflection, that their future selves will be tempted to abandon 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 known as precommitment. By making certain choices ②affordable, inconvenient, or impossible to reverse, individuals can protect a long-term goal from a short-term impulse that has not yet arisen. A person hoping to save money might lock funds into an account that ③penalizes early withdrawal, removing the very temptation that would otherwise be difficult to resist. Similarly, someone determined to finish a project might ④publicly announce a deadline, transforming private intentions into a commitment that carries social consequences if broken. What unites these examples is a simple insight: because future desires cannot always be ⑤trusted, the wisest moment to act may be now.

A rational approach to decision-making dictates that only future costs and benefits should influence a choice, since resources already spent cannot be ①recovered regardless of what is decided next. In practice, however, people routinely allow such irrecoverable expenditures, known as sunk costs, to shape their subsequent decisions, a pattern referred to as the sunk cost fallacy. A moviegoer who finds a film thoroughly ②disappointing after the first thirty minutes will often remain in the theater until the credits roll, reasoning 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 has invested heavily in a failing project frequently ③abandons funding it, arguing that stopping 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, ④compounding the very waste the decision-makers hoped to avoid. Economists therefore urge decision-makers to evaluate each choice based solely on its prospective outcomes, treating past expenditures as ⑤irrelevant to the decision at hand.

As buildings account for a substantial share of global energy consumption, architects have increasingly turned to a design philosophy known as the passive house standard, which _______________. Central to this approach is airtight construction, in which continuous insulation and sealed joints prevent conditioned air from leaking outward, thereby reducing the heating and cooling loads conventional buildings require. Triple-glazed windows, oriented to capture sunlight in winter while shading interiors in summer, further stabilize indoor temperatures without relying heavily on furnaces or air conditioners. Ventilation systems equipped with heat exchangers also recover warmth from outgoing air, transferring it to incoming air so that comfort is maintained without excessive energy use. For example, some passive houses built in cold climates have reduced heating costs by more than ninety percent. Consequently, many architects regard passive house design not as a luxury for wealthy homeowners but as a practical model capable of reshaping mainstream construction.

Marketers have long recognized that perceived scarcity can dramatically increase a product's desirability, even when the item's intrinsic qualities remain entirely unchanged. A retailer who labels a product as "limited edition" or displays a countdown timer beside a discounted offer prompts customers to make hurried purchase decisions they might otherwise postpone or reconsider. Consumers who later reflect calmly on such purchases frequently discover that the item's actual usefulness fell well short of the ___________ they experienced at the moment of decision.

Conventional economic wisdom holds that more options are always preferable to fewer. 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, become less likely to make any purchase or decision at all. Businesses that recognize this dynamic have begun deliberately curating smaller, carefully selected assortments, betting that ___________ can sometimes generate more sales and greater customer satisfaction than abundance.

Behavioral savings programs of this kind rest on a deliberately modest set of psychological assumptions about their participants. (A) Rather than assuming that employees will consistently exercise the willpower required to save voluntarily, the program assumes the opposite: that inertia, once established in a beneficial direction, will keep participants enrolled without further effort. (B) This modest assumption turns out to be far more reliable than optimistic assumptions about sustained willpower, since it requires participants to do nothing at all in order to keep saving. (C) Traditional financial education campaigns, by contrast, often rely on the assumption that providing sufficient information will motivate people to change their saving habits, an assumption that field results have repeatedly failed to support.

The ethical debate surrounding nudging often intensifies when the technique is applied to particularly vulnerable populations. (A) Elderly individuals facing complex decisions about long-term care, for example, may be especially susceptible to defaults and framing effects, raising the stakes of any given choice architecture considerably. (B) Some ethicists argue that heightened vulnerability actually strengthens the case for carefully designed nudges, since vulnerable individuals may otherwise fall prey to more overtly exploitative influences, such as aggressive sales tactics, if a beneficial default is not established first. (C) Others insist that heightened vulnerability demands greater caution rather than more intervention, since those least equipped to resist a nudge are also least equipped to recognize when it no longer serves their genuine interests.