영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

A cluster of neurons smaller than a pea can now spontaneously ①organizing itself into layered structures that mimic, in miniature, the architecture of a developing human brain. Grown from stem cells coaxed to follow the same developmental cues that guide an embryo, these brain organoids have begun ②firing electrical signals in patterns that faintly resemble the activity recorded in an infant's brain. For researchers studying disorders such as autism or schizophrenia, this offers something long unavailable: a living model of human brain development that can be ③observed and manipulated directly, without ever touching an actual patient. Because organoids lack sensory organs, a body, or any connection to the outside world, most neuroscientists argue that the structures cannot generate anything ④resembling subjective experience, however brain-like their electrical activity may appear. Even so, the pace at which these organoids are growing more complex has convinced some ethicists that the field would benefit from ⑤establishing clear boundaries now, before the science outruns the conversation about what it means.

Among the many tools available to those who design choice environments, few are as quietly powerful as the default option, the alternative that ①takes effect automatically unless a person actively selects something else. Because changing a default requires deliberate effort, many individuals simply accept whatever arrangement has been preselected for them, regardless of whether that arrangement actually ②serve their interests best. This tendency has been documented across a remarkably wide range of contexts. Countries that automatically enroll citizens in organ donation programs, requiring an explicit request to opt out, consistently report far higher donor registration rates than countries that require citizens ③to actively opt in. Employers who automatically enroll new hires in retirement savings plans likewise see participation rates ④climb dramatically compared with employers who leave enrollment entirely voluntary. What makes default options so influential is not merely convenience; a default also functions as an implicit signal about what is considered normal or recommended, subtly ⑤shaping perceptions even among individuals who believe themselves to be deciding independently.

Imagine a brilliant scientist named Mary who has spent her entire life inside a black-and-white room, ①learning everything physical science could ever teach about color, including the exact wavelengths of light and the precise neural processes triggered when a person sees red. Despite this complete physical knowledge, Mary herself has never actually ②seen a color; every book, screen, and object in her world has been carefully restricted to shades of gray. Suppose that one day Mary is finally released from the room and ③shown a ripe red tomato for the first time. Philosopher Frank Jackson argued that Mary would learn something entirely new at that moment, namely what it actually ④feeling like to see red, even though she already possessed every physical fact about color there was to know beforehand. If Mary genuinely gains new knowledge upon leaving the room, then physical facts alone cannot ⑤capture everything there is to know about conscious experience.

A cotton plant that manufactures its own insecticide sounds like science fiction, yet it has been ①growing in fields around the world for decades. Scientists achieved this by isolating a gene from a soil bacterium that produces a protein toxic to specific insect pests but harmless to humans, then ②inserting that gene into the plant's own genome so that every cell manufactures the protective protein. Other genetically modified crops carry a gene that allows them ③survive direct exposure to a particular herbicide, letting farmers spray a field to kill weeds without harming the crop growing among them. Supporters point to yield increases and reduced pesticide spraying documented across millions of hectares, while critics worry about weeds and insects ④evolving resistance to these built-in defenses over time, much as bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics. Regulatory agencies in most countries now require extensive testing before a genetically modified crop reaches the market, ⑤evaluating everything from its nutritional content to its potential effects on nearby ecosystems.

Consider a village green shared freely by every herder in the community, where each individual may graze as many animals as they wish without paying any fee. From the perspective of any single herder, adding one more animal to the shared pasture brings a clear personal ①loss, since the extra income belongs entirely to that herder alone. The cost of the additional grazing, however, is spread thinly across every herder who uses the green, so no single individual bears more than a tiny fraction of the ②damage. Because this calculation favors adding more animals for every rational herder, the shared pasture is gradually ③overgrazed until it can no longer support any animals at all, harming the very community whose rational members caused the collapse. Philosophers use this scenario to illustrate a troubling gap between what benefits an individual in the short term and what preserves a shared resource in the ④long term, a gap that voluntary self-restraint alone rarely ⑤closes.

When people recall precisely where they were and what they were doing at the moment they learned of some momentous public event, the resulting memory often feels extraordinarily vivid, as though it had been etched into the mind with photographic precision; researchers have termed such recollections flashbulb memories. Proponents of this concept once argued that the emotional intensity and surprise accompanying such events trigger a distinct neural mechanism that preserves details with unusual fidelity, effectively exempting them from the gradual decay that afflicts ordinary memories. Subsequent longitudinal studies, however, have complicated this picture considerably: when researchers compared accounts gathered within days of an event to accounts gathered years later, they discovered that details had frequently been altered, omitted, or even fabricated, even though the individuals reporting them expressed unwavering confidence in their accuracy. This persistent mismatch between subjective certainty and objective consistency implies that _______________.

Philosophers sometimes ask their students to imagine a creature physically identical to an ordinary human being in every measurable respect, one that walks, talks, laughs, and even cries out in apparent pain when injured, yet that has no inner conscious experience whatsoever. This imagined being, commonly called a philosophical zombie, behaves exactly as a conscious person would, since every neuron fires in precisely the same pattern. Defenders of the argument claim that because such a zombie is at least conceivable without any logical contradiction, consciousness itself cannot be fully explained by physical processes alone. Critics respond that _______________.

Standard economic theory assumes that money is fungible, meaning that a dollar earned as salary is functionally identical to a dollar received as a tax refund or won in a lottery. In practice, however, people routinely sort their finances into separate mental accounts, treating money differently depending on its source or intended purpose, a process economists call mental accounting. The practice thus reveals that financial behavior is guided less by pure arithmetic than by ___________ that money's origin and purpose.

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. (A) 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. (B) By supplying the cell with a template during this repair step, scientists can direct that machinery to insert a specific new sequence, and what once required years of painstaking work to alter a single gene can now be accomplished within days. (C) 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.

Meanwhile, the underlying technology continues to advance regardless of whether the diplomacy meant to govern it keeps pace. Military researchers have developed weapons systems capable of identifying and engaging targets without a human pressing the final button, a prospect that has alarmed arms control experts for over a decade. ( ① ) Advocates within defense agencies argue that autonomous systems can react faster than any human operator and may even reduce casualties. ( ② ) Human rights organizations counter that removing a person from the final decision strips away moral responsibility at the exact moment it matters most. ( ③ ) Diplomatic negotiations toward an international treaty have repeatedly stalled, partly because military powers disagree on how to define autonomy precisely enough to regulate it. ( ④ ) This disagreement has left the treaty process without a clear path forward. ( ⑤ )