영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Suppose a mad scientist removed a living brain from its body, ①placed it in a vat of nutrient fluid, and connected its neurons to a supercomputer capable of generating perfectly realistic sensations. The brain would experience a full and convincing world, complete with a sky, a body, and other people, without ever ②suspecting that none of it existed outside the simulation. This scenario, unsettling as it sounds, raises a genuinely difficult question for anyone ③confident in their own perception: how could a person ever prove that they are not that very brain right now? Ordinary evidence cannot help, since any proof gathered through the senses would itself ④be generated by the same simulation being tested. Some philosophers conclude that absolute certainty about the external world is simply unattainable, while others argue that the mere possibility of deception, however vivid, ⑤are not sufficient reason to abandon our everyday trust in what we perceive.

Desalination, the process of ①removing dissolved salts from seawater to produce fresh water, has increasingly been adopted by coastal regions facing chronic water scarcity. Most modern facilities rely on reverse osmosis, a technique in which seawater is ②forced through membranes whose microscopic pores block salt while letting water molecules pass. Because this method consumes far less energy than the thermal distillation once dominant in the industry, it has become the preferred choice for large-scale plants. Nevertheless, desalination remains an inherently costly and environmentally burdensome solution, a fact often overlooked amid enthusiasm for ending water shortages. For instance, the process generates a concentrated byproduct called brine, which, when discharged without adequate dilution, can raise local salinity to levels that ③harms marine life. Pumping seawater through membranes at high pressure also ④demands substantial electricity, so plants powered by fossil fuels can worsen the emissions that intensify drought. Therefore, engineers increasingly argue that desalination should be ⑤treated not as a stand-alone remedy but as one component of a broader conservation strategy.

As cities have expanded across landscapes once covered with absorbent soil, impervious surfaces have turned stormwater from a resource that ①recharges groundwater into a hazard that floods streets and carries pollutants into waterways. Green infrastructure, which ②mimic the hydrological functions that natural landscapes once performed, offers planners a way to treat the city as a sponge rather than a rigid drainage pipe. Rain gardens, shallow depressions planted with deep-rooted vegetation, are designed to capture runoff from rooftops, ③allowing it to filter slowly through soil before reaching underground aquifers. Permeable pavement, made of porous materials ④that let water pass directly through, serves a similar purpose along sidewalks, where asphalt would remain impenetrable. For example, cities that replaced pavement with permeable alternatives have reported notable reductions in flooding during storms that once overwhelmed sewers. However, engineers caution that green infrastructure cannot entirely replace conventional pipes in dense cores, where heavy runoff still ⑤requires structural reinforcement. Consequently, municipalities now regard green and gray infrastructure as complementary systems, each compensating for the other's limitations.

The ecological footprint, a widely cited measure of how much biologically productive land and water a population ①require to sustain its consumption, has become one of the most familiar tools for communicating humanity's environmental impact. By ②converting diverse activities, from driving to eating meat, into a single unit of land area, the measure allows policymakers to grasp whether a lifestyle exceeds what the planet can regenerate. This simplicity, however, is also the source of its most persistent criticism. Because the footprint aggregates dissimilar impacts, such as carbon emissions and water scarcity, into one composite figure, it can obscure important differences among problems ③that require distinct policy responses. A region might reduce its footprint by lowering carbon emissions while simultaneously ④depleting a local aquifer, yet the aggregate number could still appear to improve, concealing damage that demands urgent attention. Furthermore, the method assumes that all bio-productive land is roughly interchangeable, ⑤treating a hectare of forest as equivalent to a hectare of farmland, even though the two provide markedly different ecological functions.

A small bakery once sold a basic loaf of bread for three dollars and a premium loaf for six dollars, and most customers, uncertain about the added value of the pricier option, simply bought the ①cheaper one. The owner then introduced a third option: a slightly larger premium loaf priced at seven dollars, one that was clearly ②inferior to the six-dollar loaf in terms of value for money. Almost nobody chose the new seven-dollar loaf, yet sales of the six-dollar loaf ③fell sharply, because it now appeared to be an obvious bargain when placed beside the inferior newcomer. This pattern, confirmed across countless pricing experiments in other markets, demonstrates that people ④rarely judge options in isolation; instead, they evaluate choices relative to whatever alternatives happen to be nearby. Businesses have since learned to design such decoys deliberately, not expecting them to be purchased at all, but hoping they will make a specific target option look far more ⑤attractive by comparison.

Sociologist Mark Granovetter challenged a common assumption when he found that job seekers were more likely to hear about new opportunities from casual acquaintances than from close friends and family. This finding, published as the strength of weak ties, rests on a structural insight: close friends tend to belong to the same tight social circle and therefore already share most of the same information, whereas casual acquaintances typically move in different circles and can act as bridges to information a person would otherwise never encounter. Weak ties, precisely because they connect otherwise separate networks, _______________. Granovetter's insight has since been applied well beyond job searches, informing research on how innovations spread and how epidemics travel through a population.

Devices that translate brain activity directly into digital commands have moved from laboratory experiments to real medical use. As the technology improves, some developers envision a future in which these interfaces extend beyond restoring lost function toward enhancing healthy minds. This prospect raises a philosophical question: if a device can alter memory, mood, or decision-making, _______________. Neuroethicists argue that mental privacy may need to be recognized as a fundamental right before this technology becomes widespread.

City governments increasingly market dense networks of surveillance cameras as a safety upgrade. Yet the same infrastructure that catches criminals also creates a permanent record of where ordinary citizens go about their daily lives. Once a camera network exists, its purpose can quietly expand, often without new public debate. Civil liberties groups argue that _______________.

Traditional industrial systems have relied on a linear model of production, in which raw materials are extracted, transformed into goods, and eventually discarded as waste. This approach treats natural resources as if unlimited and disposal as if costless. (A) Because such practices lessen dependence on finite raw materials, they reduce the environmental damage caused by mining. Consequently, the circular economy is increasingly regarded as a viable economic strategy that conserves resources for future generations. (B) A circular economy proposes an alternative framework in which materials are kept in continuous use through reuse, repair, and recycling, thereby reducing the extraction of virgin resources. Central to this model is the notion that waste, rather than being an inevitable byproduct, can be redesigned as a resource for another process, much as fallen leaves nourish the trees that shed them. (C) For example, manufacturers design products so that components can be disassembled and reused in new items once their original function ends. Some companies also lease equipment instead of selling it outright, retaining responsibility for refurbishment.

주어진 문장: Although constructing a passive house initially costs more than building a conventional home, the savings accumulated over decades of reduced energy bills often outweigh this upfront investment. 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 minimizes energy demand through the building's own structure rather than through mechanical systems. ① 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. ② 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. ③ 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. ④ For example, some passive houses built in cold climates have reduced heating costs by more than ninety percent. ⑤ Consequently, many architects regard passive house design not as a luxury for wealthy homeowners but as a practical model capable of reshaping mainstream construction. ① ② ③ ④ ⑤