영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Structural functionalism approaches society as a complex system of interdependent parts, each ①contributing to the overall stability and smooth operation of the whole, much as organs contribute to the survival of a biological body. Sociologist Talcott Parsons argued that institutions such as the family, education, religion, and government each ②performs necessary functions, socializing new members and transmitting values, so that removing or weakening any one institution ③threatens the equilibrium of the entire system. Robert Merton refined this framework by distinguishing manifest functions, the intended and openly recognized consequences of a social practice, from latent functions, unintended consequences that nonetheless help sustain the system, such as schools ④serving not only to educate but also to provide childcare that allows parents to work. Critics have long charged that functionalism, by emphasizing stability and equilibrium, struggles ⑤to explain social conflict and rapid change.

Suppose a mysterious being with a near-perfect track record of ①predicting human choices presents a player with two boxes. 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. If the being predicted the player would take only Box B, it ②placed a million dollars inside; if it predicted the player would take both boxes, it left Box B empty. The player may choose to take only Box B, or to take both boxes, and the prediction has already ③been made and cannot change. One line of reasoning says taking both boxes is strictly better, since whatever is already inside the boxes cannot ④be altered by the player's choice at this point. A second line of reasoning says taking only Box B is better, since the being's near-perfect accuracy means that choosing both boxes almost ⑤guaranteeing an empty Box B.

A liver no longer has to sit inside a human body to be studied ①closely. By coaxing stem cells to organize themselves within a nutrient-rich gel, scientists can now grow ②miniature three-dimensional structures called organoids, which reproduce much of the architecture and function of a real organ despite being no larger than a grain of rice. Unlike flat cultures grown on a plastic dish, which ③preserve many of the cues that guide normal development, organoids let cells interact in three dimensions much as they would inside the body, yielding tissue that behaves in strikingly ④realistic ways. This fidelity has made organoids invaluable for testing how a drug affects human tissue before any patient is exposed, sparing researchers much of the ⑤burden of relying on animal models alone.

Eyewitness testimony has long carried weight in courtrooms, yet decades of research reveal that memories of witnessed events are more ①malleable than most people assume. When individuals who observe an event are later exposed to ②misleading information about what they saw, whether through a leading question or a conversation with another witness, their recollections frequently incorporate details that never occurred, a phenomenon known as the misinformation effect. In one classic paradigm, participants who watched a video of a traffic accident and were then asked how fast the cars were going when they smashed into each other reported ③higher speed estimates and were more likely to falsely recall broken glass than participants asked the identical question using the milder verb hit. Crucially, these distorted memories often feel ④genuine to the person experiencing them, since the original memory trace becomes blended with the newly introduced information rather than existing as a separate, contradictory record. Such findings have prompted legal systems to adopt ⑤careless interviewing protocols designed to minimize suggestive questioning during investigations.

When anthropologists first began systematically studying societies far removed from their own, many unconsciously judged unfamiliar customs against the standards of their home culture, a tendency now known as ethnocentrism. Cultural relativism emerged as a ①disruptive principle, holding that a society's practices should be understood within their own cultural context rather than measured against an outside standard presumed to be universal. Anthropologist Franz Boas argued that no culture possesses an inherently ②superior set of values, and that apparent oddities, once examined closely, typically serve ③coherent functions within their own social systems. Cultural relativism transformed fields ranging from anthropology to international development, encouraging researchers to ④suspend quick judgment and seek local meaning before drawing conclusions. Critics caution, however, that taken to an extreme, the principle risks excusing practices that cause ⑤genuine harm.

Consider a student who genuinely intends to study for tomorrow's exam yet, when the evening actually arrives, chooses to watch another episode of a favorite show instead, promising herself she will surely study harder next week. This pattern, in which the pull of an immediate pleasure overwhelms the value of a distant benefit, appears again and again across ordinary life, from postponed exercise to delayed savings. People do not necessarily fail to understand that the future reward matters more; rather, _______________. Behavioral economists note that this preference weakens considerably once both options are pushed into the future, which is why planning a diet starting next month feels effortless compared with skipping dessert tonight.

Suppose a traveler journeyed backward in time and, through some combination of accident and intention, prevented their own grandfather from ever meeting their grandmother. Time travel to the past has long fascinated physicists and philosophers alike, but it also generates a famously troubling contradiction. ( ① ) 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. ( ② ) Yet if the traveler never made the trip, the grandfather would have survived to meet the grandmother after all, allowing the traveler to be born and eventually travel back in time. ( ③ ) The story therefore loops endlessly, undermining itself at every turn rather than settling into any stable outcome. ( ④ ) Some physicists resolve the paradox by arguing that any consistent timeline must forbid such self-defeating actions from ever succeeding. ( ⑤ ) Others propose that a traveler who alters the past simply branches off into a separate, parallel timeline instead.

The practical consequence of this precision has been a dramatic acceleration in the pace of genetic research itself. Bacteria have been cutting up invading viral DNA for billions of years, long before any scientist thought to borrow the trick for use in a laboratory. ( ① ) The CRISPR-Cas9 system, as it is now known, relies on a short guide RNA that matches a specific DNA sequence, leading a scissor-like enzyme called Cas9 directly to that exact location in the genome. ( ② ) Once Cas9 arrives at the target site, it slices both strands of the DNA helix, and the cell's own repair machinery rushes in to mend the cut, often introducing a small change in the process. ( ③ ) By supplying the cell with a template during this repair step, scientists can direct that machinery to insert a specific new sequence. ( ④ ) This goes well beyond merely disabling the original gene. ( ⑤ ) What once required years of painstaking work to alter a single gene can now, with a properly designed guide RNA, be accomplished within days.

Their actual forecasting accuracy, however, has repeatedly proven no better than that of far less experienced participants, and sometimes even worse. Overconfidence among financial professionals presents a puzzling contradiction. ( ① ) Fund managers and analysts typically possess years of specialized training, access to vast quantities of market data, and considerable professional experience. ( ② ) One might reasonably expect such expertise to translate into consistently superior predictions about future market movements. ( ③ ) Longitudinal studies tracking professional forecasts against actual outcomes reveal a persistent gap between confidence and accuracy. ( ④ ) This finding does not imply that expertise is worthless, but it does suggest that expertise can inflate confidence more readily than it improves genuine predictive accuracy. ( ⑤ ) Investors would therefore do well to treat confident predictions, however credentialed their source, with a healthy measure of skepticism.

Even so, the shift has proven immensely practical, sidestepping the objection that halted so much earlier research. 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. ( ① ) 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. ( ② ) 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. ( ③ ) A breakthrough arrived when scientists discovered that ordinary adult skin cells could be reprogrammed, through the introduction of a handful of specific genes, into a state resembling embryonic versatility without ever touching an embryo. ( ④ ) These induced pluripotent cells, as they are now called, have not entirely erased the ethical debate. ( ⑤ ) They have opened a path for stem cell research that far more scientists and funding agencies are willing to support.