영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

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.

Many households save far less for retirement than conventional financial advice would recommend, not necessarily because they lack the resources to do so, but because a combination of procrastination, present bias, and the discomfort of forgoing current consumption repeatedly ①delays the decision to begin saving. Recognizing this gap between intention and action, some economists have proposed a savings program in which employees commit today to allocating a portion of their future salary increases toward retirement savings, rather than being asked to ②increase their current take-home pay immediately. Because the sacrifice applies only to income not yet received, the commitment feels far less ③painful than an equivalent reduction in present earnings would, making employees considerably more willing to enroll. Once enrolled, the contribution rate automatically rises with each subsequent raise, gradually ④increasing savings without requiring any further deliberate action from participants. Field trials of such programs have reported substantial increases in average savings rates over several years, alongside participant satisfaction that remains notably ⑤high.

A striking proportion of individual investors believe their own stock-picking ability to be above average, a statistical impossibility given that only half of any population can genuinely outperform the rest. This tendency, known as overconfidence bias, leads investors to trade more frequently than a more cautious assessment of their own skill would justify. Paradoxically, then, the very confidence that motivates investors to act decisively often undermines the outcomes they are trying to achieve, since ___________ frequently produces worse results than a more modest, diversified strategy.

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. He concluded that both crises share a common feature, the collapse of shared norms that once told individuals what to expect and how to behave. 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, such as wealth, while denying many people the legitimate means to achieve them. Faced with this gap between aspiration and opportunity, _______________. Anomie theory therefore suggests that crime is less a product of individual failure than of structural imbalance within society itself.

Medieval philosophers told the story of a hungry donkey placed exactly midway between two identical, equally fragrant piles of hay, with no factor whatsoever tipping the balance toward either option. (A) Because the donkey is assumed to be a perfectly rational creature that always chooses the option supported by the strongest reason, it supposedly finds itself with no rational basis for choosing one pile rather than the other. (B) Paralyzed by this perfect symmetry, the donkey starves to death precisely because it can find no reason to move in either direction. (C) Critics of the story point out that real animals, and real humans, rarely face situations of such flawless symmetry, since even a tiny, arbitrary preference is usually enough to break the tie in practice.

As more schools shift toward digital textbooks and online assignments, a student without reliable internet access at home faces a disadvantage that has little to do with talent or effort. (A) That assumption is increasingly being reconsidered, particularly as more essential services, from job applications to medical appointments, move online by default. (B) Some policymakers initially treated internet access as a convenience, comparable to cable television, rather than as infrastructure essential to modern life. (C) Closing this divide will require more than simply distributing devices; it will demand sustained investment in the physical networks that carry information into every home.

Retailers have discovered practical ways to counteract the negative effects of choice overload without simply reducing the number of products they offer. (A) One common strategy involves organizing an extensive product catalog into clearly labeled categories and subcategories, allowing customers to narrow their search gradually rather than confronting the entire array at once. (B) Another approach highlights a small number of curated recommendations, such as "staff picks" or "best sellers," giving hesitant customers a reasonable starting point without eliminating other options entirely. (C) Both strategies share a common principle: they do not reduce the objective number of choices available but instead reduce the cognitive burden of navigating them.

Loss aversion does not only influence individual financial choices; it also shapes how information is presented and interpreted in everyday transactions, a phenomenon that marketers and policymakers have learned to exploit deliberately. (A) For example, a retailer who frames a price reduction as "avoid losing a $10 discount by ordering today" typically generates a stronger customer response than one who simply advertises "get a $10 discount," even though both messages describe an identical saving. (B) In other words, the manner in which a choice is presented can activate the same psychological aversion to loss that governs decisions about resources already possessed, meaning that framing itself carries real economic weight. (C) This effect is not confined to retail settings, however; negotiators, too, often treat concessions as losses rather than as steps toward mutual gain, which makes compromise feel more costly than it objectively is.

In purely material terms, of course, rejecting the offer leaves the responder objectively worse off than accepting it would have. In a typical round of the ultimatum game, a proposer offers to keep eighty percent of a sum of money, leaving only twenty percent for the responder. ( ① ) A responder who values only material gain should accept this offer without hesitation, since twenty percent of something is still more than one hundred percent of nothing. ( ② ) In practice, however, a substantial proportion of responders reject such lopsided offers outright. ( ③ ) Both participants then receive nothing, an outcome that a purely self-interested calculator would never choose voluntarily. ( ④ ) Researchers interpret this pattern as evidence that people are willing to incur a personal cost in order to punish behavior they perceive as exploitative. ( ⑤ ) This willingness to sacrifice material gain for the sake of fairness appears consistently across many different cultures, though the specific threshold for what counts as an unfair offer can vary considerably.

Scarcity cues of this kind are becoming increasingly common across online retail platforms, appearing on everything from hotel bookings to concert tickets. A shopper browsing an online store notices that a particular item is marked as "only three left in stock." ( ① ) Before seeing this notice, the shopper had regarded the item with only mild interest, uncertain whether it was worth purchasing at all. ( ② ) After seeing the notice, however, the same shopper suddenly feels a pressing urge to complete the purchase before the remaining stock disappears, even though nothing about the item itself has changed. ( ③ ) This shift in urgency illustrates how scarcity cues can transform hesitation into immediate action within moments. ( ④ ) Retailers are well aware of this dynamic, which is why such notices frequently appear even when actual stock levels are difficult for customers to verify independently. ( ⑤ ) Whether the stated scarcity is genuine or exaggerated, its psychological effect on the shopper's behavior remains remarkably similar.