영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

When people face a difficult decision, they often weigh not only the expected outcome of each option but also how painful it would feel ①to discover later that a different choice had been better. This anticipation of future regret, rather than the size of the potential loss itself, frequently becomes the dominant factor ②shaping the final decision. Investors, for example, sometimes continue holding a declining stock rather than ③selling it, not because they expect the price to recover, but because selling would force them to confront the possibility ④of having made a clear mistake. Researchers have found that people feel sharper regret over losses that resulted from taking action than over identical losses that resulted from doing nothing, which ⑤help explain why so many individuals default to inaction whenever a decision feels uncertain.

Scientists have long searched for a way to describe, in a single coherent framework, the outer limits within ①which human activity can safely continue without destabilizing the planet's fundamental systems. The concept of planetary boundaries, ②introduced by earth-system researchers, identifies nine interconnected processes, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and nitrogen pollution, each ③possessing a threshold beyond which abrupt and irreversible change becomes likely. Unlike conventional environmental limits, often defined locally, these boundaries are framed at a planetary scale, ④reflecting the idea that the Earth functions as a single interdependent system rather than a collection of isolated regions. Crossing one boundary, proponents argue, does not merely damage the system involved but can also destabilize others, since climate, oceans, and land are bound together by feedback loops that transmit disturbance across the system. Some philosophers have likened this framework to a ship's safe operating margin, within which passengers may move freely without risking the vessel's stability. Critics, however, contend that the boundaries ⑤is drawn with more confidence than the data can support.

A cricket contains, gram for gram, roughly as much protein as beef, yet requires a ①substantial fraction of the land, water, and feed needed to raise cattle. This efficiency has drawn growing attention from researchers looking for ways to feed a global population that continues to climb while arable land remains essentially fixed. Insects also convert feed into body mass with ②remarkable efficiency, since they are cold-blooded and therefore spend far less energy regulating body temperature than a cow or pig must. Despite these advantages, insect protein has struggled to gain ③acceptance in many cultures, where the idea of eating insects triggers a reflexive disgust that no nutritional argument alone seems able to overcome. Food companies have responded by grinding insects into a flour that disappears into protein bars, pasta, and baked goods, letting consumers ④benefit from the nutrition without ever having to look an insect ⑤in the eye.

People often recognize, in ①calm reflection, that their future selves will be tempted to abandon a goal they currently value. Rather than relying solely on willpower at the critical moment, they may choose to restrict their own future options in advance, a strategy known as precommitment. By making certain choices ②affordable, inconvenient, or impossible to reverse, individuals can protect a long-term goal from a short-term impulse that has not yet arisen. A person hoping to save money might lock funds into an account that ③penalizes early withdrawal, removing the very temptation that would otherwise be difficult to resist. Similarly, someone determined to finish a project might ④publicly announce a deadline, transforming private intentions into a commitment that carries social consequences if broken. What unites these examples is a simple insight: because future desires cannot always be ⑤trusted, the wisest moment to act may be now.

Over the past two decades, insights drawn from behavioral economics have moved beyond academic journals and into the machinery of government itself, reshaping how numerous public programs are designed and implemented. Tax authorities in several countries, for example, discovered that simply informing citizens how many of their neighbors had already paid overdue taxes on time substantially ①increased subsequent compliance rates, outperforming letters that merely threatened legal penalties for continued nonpayment. Public health agencies have applied similar principles to encourage preventive care, finding that appointment reminders phrased to emphasize the personal cost of a missed visit proved more ②ineffective than neutral reminders listing only the date and time. Employment offices redesigned job-seeking assistance programs around specific, actionable steps rather than general encouragement, discovering that participants who were asked to write down a concrete plan for the following week were considerably more likely to follow through than those who received only ③general advice. What unites these disparate interventions is a shared recognition that small, carefully tested adjustments to how choices are presented can produce measurable improvements in outcomes, often at a fraction of the cost required by traditional programs involving substantial financial incentives or extensive ④enforcement. This accumulated evidence has encouraged many governments to establish dedicated units tasked with applying behavioral insights ⑤systematically to policy problems across an increasingly broad range of domains.

Sociologist William Ogburn observed that when a society undergoes technological change, its material culture tends to ①advance faster than its nonmaterial culture, meaning norms, laws, and values. He termed the resulting gap cultural lag, describing the ②friction that appears when institutions have not yet caught up with new technological realities. The rise of the automobile, for instance, transformed daily mobility long before traffic laws, insurance systems, and urban planning fully ③adapted to the risks it introduced. A contemporary example can be found in genetic testing, which now allows individuals to learn detailed information about inherited disease risk well before most legal systems have ④settled questions about who may access such data. Cultural lag theory reminds us that technological progress is automatically ⑤matched by social progress, and that the resulting gap can produce confusion until laws and customs adjust to new material conditions.

People routinely seek out information that confirms what they already believe while overlooking or dismissing evidence that contradicts those beliefs, a pattern known as confirmation bias. Investors who believe a particular company will succeed tend to interpret ambiguous news about that company favorably, while skeptical investors interpret identical news unfavorably, even though both groups are examining the same underlying facts. Correcting for this bias therefore requires deliberate effort, since the mind offers no natural signal indicating that its search for information has been ___________ rather than balanced.

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. Neuroscientists would simply stimulate the brain to generate a lifetime of perfectly satisfying experiences. 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. Yet when people actually consider the offer, most hesitate, and many refuse outright. Nozick took this reluctance as evidence that _______________.

Every one of those clones, remarkably, is a perfect genetic copy of the original. The immune system produces an almost limitless variety of antibodies, each shaped to latch onto one particular molecular target with remarkable specificity. ( ① ) Monoclonal antibody drugs harness this natural precision by cloning a single antibody-producing cell in the laboratory. ( ② ) The result is an army of identical antibodies built to recognize one target, such as a protein on a cancer cell or a molecule driving an autoimmune disease. ( ③ ) Because the antibody binds only to its intended target, these drugs tend to spare healthy tissue far more effectively than traditional chemotherapy, which attacks any rapidly dividing cell regardless of whether it is cancerous. ( ④ ) Manufacturing monoclonal antibodies remains far more complicated than producing a conventional small-molecule pill, since living cells must be cultivated in carefully controlled bioreactors for weeks before the antibody can be purified and prepared for use. ( ⑤ ) This complexity keeps monoclonal antibody treatments considerably more expensive than most conventional drugs, a cost that continues to shape debates over pricing and access.

Political scientist Ted Gurr illustrated the pattern with what is often called the J-curve: revolutions tend to follow a period of sustained improvement that is then followed by a sudden reversal. Social unrest does not always emerge from the poorest conditions; it frequently erupts when circumstances are improving but not quickly enough to satisfy rising expectations. ( ① ) This paradox lies at the heart of relative deprivation theory, which holds that discontent arises less from objective hardship than from a perceived gap between what people expect and what they actually receive. ( ② ) Citizens who had grown accustomed to progress often feel suddenly cheated of gains they had come to regard as their due. ( ③ ) Because the theory centers on perception rather than raw statistics, it helps explain why relatively prosperous societies can experience intense protest. ( ④ ) Societies mired in long-standing poverty, meanwhile, sometimes remain comparatively quiet, having adjusted their expectations to match a bleak and unchanging reality. ( ⑤ )