영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Financial markets occasionally experience episodes in which asset prices rise far beyond any level that careful analysis of underlying fundamentals could justify, a phenomenon commonly ①attributed to herd psychology. During such episodes, individual investors, observing that prices have already risen substantially, often conclude that continuing to buy is reasonable simply because so many others ②are doing the same, rather than because any independent evaluation supports the purchase. This dynamic can become self-perpetuating: rising prices attract new buyers, whose purchases push prices higher still, thereby ③attracting yet another wave of buyers convinced that the upward trend itself constitutes reliable evidence of underlying value. Historical episodes of speculative excess display a strikingly similar pattern, suggesting that the underlying psychological mechanism ④remain constant even as the specific assets involved change considerably across centuries. Eventually, however, some triggering event, however minor, prompts a portion of investors to reconsider their assumptions, and the resulting wave of selling can ⑤trigger a collapse every bit as rapid and self-reinforcing as the original ascent.

Émile Durkheim insisted that sociology could become a genuine science only if it identified a ①distinct subject matter that could not be reduced to individual psychology. He termed this subject matter social facts, defined as ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that exist outside any single individual yet exert a ②coercive influence over that individual's behavior. Language, currency, legal codes, and religious ritual all qualify as social facts, since a person is born into these systems already fully formed and must ③conform to them regardless of personal preference. Durkheim insisted that social facts should be studied as things, meaning they must be examined ④empirically through observable patterns such as statistics. His study of suicide rates exemplified this method, showing that rates varied ⑤randomly according to variables such as religious affiliation and marital status, patterns that could not be explained by individual psychology alone.

As cities have expanded across landscapes once covered with ①absorbent soil, impervious surfaces have turned stormwater from a resource that recharges groundwater into a hazard that floods streets and carries pollutants into waterways. Green infrastructure, which mimics the hydrological functions that natural landscapes once performed, offers planners a way to treat the city as a sponge rather than a ②rigid drainage pipe. Rain gardens, shallow depressions planted with deep-rooted vegetation, are designed to capture runoff from rooftops, allowing it to filter ③rapidly through soil before reaching underground aquifers. Permeable pavement, made of porous materials that let water pass directly through, serves a similar purpose along sidewalks, where asphalt would remain ④impenetrable. For example, cities that replaced pavement with permeable alternatives have reported ⑤notable 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 requires structural reinforcement. Consequently, municipalities now regard green and gray infrastructure as complementary systems, each compensating for the other's limitations.

Marketers have long recognized that perceived scarcity, the sense that a product or opportunity is available only in limited quantity or for a limited time, can dramatically increase its ①desirability, even when the item's intrinsic qualities remain entirely unchanged. This phenomenon, known as the scarcity effect, operates on a simple psychological principle: when something appears ②easy to obtain, people tend to infer that it must be valuable, since truly worthless items rarely generate genuine competition for possession. A retailer who labels a product as "limited edition" or displays a countdown timer beside a discounted offer exploits this inference, prompting customers to make ③hurried purchase decisions they might otherwise postpone or reconsider. Experimental studies confirm that identical products are rated as more desirable and often command ④higher prices when framed as scarce than when the same products are presented as widely and continuously available. Consumers who later reflect calmly on such purchases frequently discover that the item's actual usefulness fell well short of the ⑤urgency they experienced at the moment of decision.

Prospect theory proposes that the subjective value of money is not a straight line but a curved function. In the domain of gains, the function bends downward as amounts increase. A parallel pattern appears among losses, where the curve bends in the opposite direction, yet sensitivity still fades as the amount grows larger. This tendency, known as diminishing sensitivity, explains why _______________. Understanding this curvature allows economists to predict decisions that a simple, linear model of value could never anticipate.

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.

For patients born with a single faulty gene, the disease has traditionally been treated indirectly, managing symptoms for a lifetime rather than addressing the genetic error itself. Gene therapy attempts something more ambitious: delivering a corrected copy of the gene directly into a patient's cells, often using a disabled virus as a delivery vehicle. Once inside the nucleus, the corrected gene can begin producing the protein the patient's body had always lacked, in some cases reversing symptoms that medication alone had never been able to touch. Early trials were haunted by serious setbacks, including cases in which the delivery virus triggered a dangerous immune reaction or inserted the new gene in a location that disrupted other essential genes. _______________.

Desalination, the process of removing dissolved salts from seawater to produce fresh water, has increasingly been adopted by coastal regions facing chronic water scarcity. (A) Pumping seawater through membranes at high pressure also demands substantial electricity, so plants powered by fossil fuels can worsen the emissions that intensify drought. Therefore, engineers increasingly argue that desalination should be treated not as a stand-alone remedy but as one component of a broader conservation strategy. (B) 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 harm marine life. (C) Most modern facilities rely on reverse osmosis, a technique in which seawater is forced 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.

People also want to actually do certain things and to actually be a certain kind of person, not merely to feel as though they had. Philosopher Robert Nozick asked his readers to imagine a machine capable of producing any experience they desired, from writing a great novel to falling in love, all indistinguishable from reality once they were plugged in. ( ① ) Neuroscientists would simply stimulate the brain to generate a lifetime of perfectly satisfying experiences, and the person floating in the tank would have no memory of ever choosing to enter it. ( ② ) If pleasure and the avoidance of pain were truly all that mattered, as classical hedonism claims, then everyone should rush to connect themselves permanently to such a machine. ( ③ ) Yet when people actually consider the offer, most hesitate, and many refuse outright. ( ④ ) Nozick took this reluctance as evidence that human beings care about more than the quality of their internal sensations. ( ⑤ ) Maintaining genuine contact with a reality beyond one's own mind, it turns out, matters just as much as how that mind happens to feel.

This arrangement becomes especially troubling when health data influences decisions far beyond fitness, such as insurance premiums or employment screening. Millions of people now wear devices that continuously track their heart rate, sleep patterns, and daily activity, generating an intimate stream of health data. ( ① ) Users generally assume this information belongs to them, since it is drawn directly from their own bodies. ( ② ) In practice, however, the terms of service that few people read often grant the manufacturer broad rights to store, analyze, and even sell anonymized versions of that data to insurers or advertisers. ( ③ ) Advocates for reform argue that biological data deserves a category of protection stronger than ordinary consumer information. ( ④ ) This is precisely because it can never truly be replaced or reset once it has been exposed. ( ⑤ )