영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Every time a smartphone connects to a cell tower or a Wi-Fi network, it quietly records a data point that can later ①be pieced together into a detailed map of where its owner has been. Most users agree to this tracking without ②reading the fine print, assuming that a single company's database poses little threat. The real danger, however, emerges when location data from multiple sources ③combining. A pattern that reveals a person's home, workplace, and daily route can expose far more than any single app ever intended to share. Companies often argue that anonymized data cannot be traced back to individuals, yet researchers have repeatedly ④shown that a handful of location points is enough to identify a specific person. As a result, privacy experts increasingly insist that location data ⑤deserves the same legal protection as medical records.

Social media platforms rarely show users a neutral stream of information. Instead, recommendation algorithms ①are optimized to maximize engagement, and content that provokes strong emotion, particularly outrage, tends to hold attention longer than balanced reporting ever could. Over time, users ②exposed to a steady diet of emotionally charged content may come to believe that extreme opinions are far more common than they actually are, simply because those opinions ③dominate their feed. Researchers describe this as a distorted mirror: the platform reflects not society as it truly is, but a version ④shaping by whatever keeps people scrolling. Some platforms have experimented with reducing the visibility of outrage-driven content, only ⑤to see user engagement drop.

Factories that once employed hundreds of workers on an assembly line now run with a ①fraction of that staff, as robotic arms handle tasks that used to require human hands. Economists have long debated whether this shift destroys jobs or simply transforms them. Historical evidence offers some ②comfort: previous waves of automation eventually created new categories of work that no one had predicted. However, critics point out that earlier transitions unfolded over generations, giving workers ③ample time to retrain, whereas today's robots are being deployed at a pace that leaves little room for adjustment. A factory worker displaced this year cannot simply wait for a new industry to emerge decades from now. For this reason, many economists argue that the real ④challenge is not the robots themselves, but the ⑤sluggish speed at which society is expected to adapt to them.

Policymakers seeking to improve public welfare without restricting individual freedom have increasingly embraced an approach known as nudging, which alters the environment in which choices are made rather than ①mandating particular outcomes. A nudge preserves every option that was previously available; it simply arranges those options so that the choice deemed most beneficial becomes easier or more ②visible than the alternatives. Advocates argue that such interventions respect autonomy precisely because no option is ③removed and no penalty is imposed for choosing differently. Critics, however, contend that even subtle architectural choices exploit predictable cognitive shortcuts, raising questions about whether influencing behavior through psychological means is meaningfully different from more ④coercive forms of persuasion. Despite this ongoing debate, governments across many countries have adopted nudge-based programs, reporting outcomes that are frequently ⑤ineffective compared with those achieved through traditional regulation or public information campaigns alone.

When people estimate the value of an unfamiliar product, they rarely rely on objective calculation alone; instead, they anchor their judgment to whatever numerical reference happens to be presented first, however ①arbitrary that number may be. This phenomenon exerts a ②disproportionate influence on price perception precisely because initial figures function as a kind of cognitive gravity that subsequent estimates struggle to escape. A shopper who first sees a jacket listed at $300 before it is marked down to $150 will likely judge the discounted price as an excellent ③bargain, regardless of whether $150 actually reflects the jacket's true worth. Retailers, well aware of this bias, frequently display a ④deflated "original price" beside a discounted one, not because the higher figure is meaningful, but because it recalibrates customers' expectations. Even professionals are not immune: negotiators who open with an extreme initial offer often secure more ⑤favorable final terms than those who begin with a moderate one.

Conventional economic wisdom holds that more options are always preferable to fewer. Empirical research on consumer behavior, however, complicates this assumption considerably. When shoppers are presented with an extensive array of choices, they frequently experience heightened anxiety about making the wrong selection and, paradoxically, become less likely to make any purchase or decision at all. Businesses that recognize this dynamic have begun deliberately curating smaller, carefully selected assortments, betting that ___________ can sometimes generate more sales and greater customer satisfaction than abundance.

Blockchain technology was originally promoted as a way to remove the need for trusted middlemen. In theory, this design distributes power away from any single institution and toward the network as a whole. In practice, however, _______________, controlling enough computing power or currency to influence outcomes that were supposed to be decided collectively. Whether decentralization can survive this concentration of power remains one of the technology's most unresolved questions.

Physicist Erwin Schrödinger devised a now-famous thought experiment not to describe an actual laboratory procedure, but to expose an absurdity hidden within a leading interpretation of quantum mechanics. (A) Because the atom's decay is governed by genuine quantum randomness, standard quantum theory describes the atom, before anyone looks, as existing in a superposition of having decayed and not having decayed at the same time. (B) Imagine a cat sealed inside a closed box together with a radioactive atom and a vial of poison gas rigged to break open the instant the atom decays. (C) If the theory is applied consistently to the entire box, the cat itself would have to be considered simultaneously alive and dead until an observer opens the lid and looks inside.

Mental accounting also shapes how consumers respond to windfalls of different sizes and origins. (A) A modest windfall, such as a small cash-back reward, tends to be absorbed into everyday spending and disappears almost unnoticed within a household's general budget. (B) A substantial windfall, by contrast, such as an inheritance or a large bonus, is more likely to be mentally assigned to a separate category, sometimes labeled as "extra" money reserved for investment or a significant purchase. (C) This difference in treatment suggests that the perceived significance of a sum, rather than its objective purchasing power, determines the mental account into which it is placed.

There is also a quieter cultural cost that rarely appears in productivity reports. Sensors buried in the soil now report moisture levels in real time, drones survey entire fields for signs of disease within minutes, and automated systems adjust irrigation without a farmer ever walking the rows. ( ① ) For large operations with the capital to invest, these tools have measurably increased yields while reducing water waste. ( ② ) Smaller family farms, however, often cannot afford the upfront cost of this equipment. ( ③ ) Some worry that the gap between high-tech and traditional operations will only widen as the technology advances further. ( ④ ) Generations of farming knowledge, passed down through direct observation of soil, weather, and crops, risk being replaced by dashboards and automated alerts. ( ⑤ )