영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Suppose you meet a quiet, gentle man ①who speaks softly, tends a small garden, and organizes his bookshelf with meticulous care. ②Ask whether he is more likely a florist or a truck driver, most people instinctively choose florist, since his personality matches the stereotype so neatly. This judgment, however, ③ignores a crucial fact: truck drivers vastly outnumber florists in almost every country, which means that, statistically, he is far more likely to belong to the larger group regardless of how well he fits the flower-shop image. Relying on resemblance to a familiar category rather than on underlying numerical proportions, ④known among researchers as representativeness, leads people to overlook these base rates almost automatically. Even trained professionals, ⑤who should know better, often fall into the same trap when a vivid description feels more convincing than plain statistics.

Time travel to the past has long fascinated physicists and philosophers alike, but it also generates a famously troubling ①contradiction. Suppose a traveler journeyed backward in time and, through some combination of accident and intention, prevented their own grandfather from ever meeting their grandmother. If the grandfather never had children, the traveler themselves would never have been born, which means the traveler could never have existed to make the trip in the first place. Yet if the traveler never made the trip, the grandfather would have ②survived to meet the grandmother after all, allowing the traveler to be born and eventually travel back in time. The story therefore ③loops endlessly, undermining itself at every turn rather than settling into any stable outcome. Some physicists resolve the paradox by arguing that any consistent timeline must ④permit such self-defeating actions to succeed freely, while others propose that a traveler who alters the past simply branches off into a separate, parallel timeline instead, an idea many find ⑤appealing precisely because it avoids the contradiction altogether.

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.

A plastic bag that fully decomposes within months rather than lingering for centuries sounds almost too convenient to be real, yet certain bioplastics on the market ①rarely do that under the right conditions. Unlike conventional plastic, derived almost entirely from petroleum, many bioplastics are synthesized from renewable feedstocks such as corn starch or sugarcane, sometimes with the help of bacteria engineered to produce plastic-like polymers as a ②byproduct of their metabolism. Not every bioplastic biodegrades quickly, however, and some marketed as eco-friendly break down only in industrial composting facilities that reach conditions ③rarely found in a backyard compost heap or the open ocean. Critics point out that growing crops for bioplastic production can compete with food crops for farmland and water, complicating the assumption that a biological origin automatically makes a material more ④sustainable. Researchers are now exploring bioplastics made from agricultural waste and algae instead of dedicated crops, hoping to sidestep this competition for land while preserving the ⑤benefits that first made bioplastics appealing.

Biodegradable plastics have been promoted as a promising 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 accelerate microbial breakdown once discarded. However, _______________. 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 low. In addition, when mixed with conventional plastics in recycling streams, they can contaminate 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 genuine potential requires not only technological refinement but also facilities capable of providing the precise conditions decomposition demands.

Imagine rewriting a bacterium's code the way a programmer edits a line of software, and much of what synthetic biology promises begins to make sense. Researchers in this field assemble standardized genetic parts into circuits that can be inserted into a cell, instructing it to perform a task that no natural organism would carry out. Because these circuits are built from interchangeable parts rather than designed from scratch each time, _______________. Critics note that biological systems rarely behave as predictably as electronic circuits, since a gene inserted into a new cell can interact with existing pathways in unexpected ways. Even so, as the catalog of standardized parts keeps expanding, engineers are gaining confidence to design increasingly complex systems.

Prospect theory proposes that the subjective value of money is not a straight line but a curved function, differing sharply from the assumptions of classical economic models. (A) Understanding this curvature allows economists to predict decisions that a simple, linear model of value could never anticipate. (B) This tendency, known as diminishing sensitivity, explains why a shopper barely notices a ten dollar increase on a two thousand dollar purchase, though the same ten dollars would matter enormously as the price of a meal. (C) In the domain of gains, the function bends downward as amounts increase, and a parallel pattern appears among losses, where the curve bends in the opposite direction, yet sensitivity still fades as the amount grows larger.

When sociologist Émile Durkheim studied suicide rates across different societies, he noticed something puzzling: rates rose not only during economic depression but also during sudden prosperity. (B) Decades later, Robert Merton extended the concept to explain deviance within stable societies, proposing that anomie also arises when a culture insists that everyone pursue identical goals while denying many people the legitimate means to achieve them. (A) He concluded that both crises share a common feature, the collapse of shared norms, a state Durkheim called anomie, arguing that rapid social change can strip away the moral guidelines that regulate human desire. (C) Faced with this gap between aspiration and opportunity, some individuals conform, but others turn to innovation, ritual, retreat, or rebellion.

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.

Advocates for the elderly argue that robots should be evaluated strictly as tools that free up human time for human contact, never as a lower-cost replacement for the contact itself. Facing a shortage of caregivers and a rapidly aging population, several countries have begun deploying robots designed to remind elderly residents to take medication, monitor for falls, and even offer simple conversation. ( ① ) Early trials show that many residents report reduced loneliness, particularly when a robot's presence allows a human staff member to spend more time with each patient. ( ② ) Critics, however, worry that this framing quietly shifts the goal of care. ( ③ ) Instead of asking how technology can support human connection, institutions may come to treat a robot's companionship as an acceptable substitute for it. ( ④ ) This risk grows especially large in facilities already struggling with tight budgets. ( ⑤ )