영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Emissions trading, a market-based mechanism for ①curbing greenhouse gases, allows governments to set an overall limit on carbon output while letting firms trade permits within that limit. Under this system, ②known as cap-and-trade, companies that cut emissions more cheaply than required can sell surplus allowances to firms facing higher reduction costs. Proponents argue that this flexibility lets society reach a given environmental target at the lowest overall cost, since abatement shifts toward whoever can ③achieve it most economically. Critics, however, ④contends that trading schemes frequently allocate too many permits, a flaw that has historically depressed carbon prices and blunted incentives to invest in cleaner technology. For example, early phases of several regional markets granted allowances so generously that permit prices collapsed, ⑤leaving polluters with little pressure to change their practices.

When people are ①asked to judge how risky or beneficial a particular technology is, they rarely conduct anything ②resembling a careful cost-benefit analysis. Instead, they consult a quick emotional impression, an instinctive sense of whether the technology feels good or feels bad, and let that impression guide their entire judgment. This mental shortcut, ③known as the affect heuristic, produces a curious pattern that traditional risk theory struggles to explain: activities people like tend to be judged as both safer and more beneficial, while activities they dislike are judged as both riskier and less beneficial, even when no logical relationship between risk and benefit exists. For example, when researchers ④presented a fictional industrial chemical alongside a brief description emphasizing its convenience, participants rated it not only as more useful but also, illogically, as less dangerous. Because emotional impressions form so rapidly and feel so trustworthy, correcting for this heuristic requires deliberate effort; simply presenting more accurate statistics to already anxious or enthusiastic audiences rarely ⑤change their underlying judgment.

Traditional economic models predict that a rational individual offered any positive sum of money, however small, should accept it without hesitation, since even a modest gain is preferable to ①receiving nothing at all. A simple experimental exercise known as the ultimatum game, in which one participant proposes how to split a sum of money and a second participant may either accept or reject the proposed division, consistently ②contradicts this prediction. When the proposer offers a division perceived as unfair, the second participant frequently rejects the offer entirely, leaving both parties with nothing rather than ③accepting an outcome viewed as insulting. This behavior indicates that individuals value fairness as an end in itself, sometimes willingly ④sacrificing material gain to punish perceived exploitation. Neuroscientific investigations complement this finding, revealing that unfair offers ⑤activates brain regions associated with disgust and negative emotion.

Economists have long debated whether prosperity and environmental quality are fundamentally ①opposed, or whether the relationship between them changes shape as an economy matures. The Environmental Kuznets Curve, a hypothesis borrowed from earlier theories of income inequality, proposes that pollution initially ②rises alongside economic growth before eventually declining once a society crosses a certain threshold of wealth. In its early stages, industrializing nations ③prioritize output over conservation, treating clean air and water as expendable costs of development to be addressed later. Beyond a certain point, however, rising incomes generate both the technological capacity and the political will to demand ④more lenient regulation, so degradation begins to reverse even as production keeps expanding. Some scholars regard this trajectory as a ⑤reassuring paradox, suggesting that the very growth blamed for ecological harm may eventually finance its own repair. Critics, by contrast, argue that the curve rests on a narrow selection of pollutants that happen to decline with wealth, while ignoring greenhouse gases and resource depletion, which show no comparable tendency to fall.

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.

Imagine rewriting a bacterium's code the way a programmer edits a line of software, and much of what synthetic biology promises begins to make sense. Researchers in this field assemble standardized genetic parts into circuits that can be inserted into a cell, instructing it to perform a task that no natural organism would carry out. Because these circuits are built from interchangeable parts rather than designed from scratch each time, _______________. Critics note that biological systems rarely behave as predictably as electronic circuits, since a gene inserted into a new cell can interact with existing pathways in unexpected ways. Even so, as the catalog of standardized parts keeps expanding, engineers are gaining confidence to design increasingly complex systems.

Picture a woman who receives a plain ceramic mug as a free gift at a conference and, later that afternoon, refuses to sell it for anything less than triple its price in the gift shop downstairs. (A) In fact, before she owned the mug, she would never have paid extra for it; once it became hers, however, its value in her mind rose sharply, simply because she now possessed it. (B) Researchers have repeatedly observed this pattern across many everyday objects, from coffee mugs and concert tickets to office chairs and old furniture inherited from relatives. (C) Owners consistently demand more money to give something up than buyers are willing to offer for that very same item, revealing a curious asymmetry rooted purely in possession itself. Some economists argue that this effect explains why negotiations over inherited property so often collapse, since each side quietly attaches a different value to what it currently holds. Understanding this bias, therefore, helps explain why simply owning something, even briefly, can distort how fairly people judge its true worth.

주어진 문장: In other words, memory is not a fixed archive but an ever-changing record that is rewritten each time it is accessed. For much of the twentieth century, memory researchers assumed that once a memory had been consolidated—transformed from a fragile, short-term trace into a stable, long-term representation—it remained essentially fixed, immune to further modification unless the underlying neural circuitry was physically damaged. ( ① ) This assumption, however, was overturned by a body of research demonstrating that the act of retrieval itself can destabilize a previously consolidated memory, rendering it temporarily susceptible to alteration before it is, in a sense, filed away again. ( ② ) During this narrow window, which typically lasts only a few hours, the memory can be strengthened, weakened, or even subtly distorted by new information encountered in the interim, after which it must undergo a second round of stabilization, a process now widely referred to as reconsolidation. ( ③ ) Consequently, what we experience as a stable recollection may actually be a continuously revised construction, ( ④ ) reshaped every time it is summoned into conscious awareness and returned to storage. ( ⑤ )

주어진 문장: The first of these, often called System 1, operates beneath conscious awareness, shaping judgments before a person even realizes a decision is being made. Psychologists studying human judgment often describe the mind as operating through two distinct systems rather than a single unified process. ( ① ) System 1 works quickly and automatically, generating impressions and snap judgments without any noticeable sense of effort, much as a driver instinctively brakes when a ball suddenly rolls into the street. ( ② ) System 2, by contrast, is slow, deliberate, and demanding, engaged only when a problem requires careful calculation or conscious reasoning. ( ③ ) Most daily decisions are handled almost entirely by System 1, which allows people to function efficiently without exhausting their limited mental resources. ( ④ ) This efficiency comes at a cost, however, because System 1 relies on simple shortcuts that can produce systematic errors, and System 2 is frequently too lazy or too occupied to double-check them. ( ⑤ )

주어진 문장: This strategic use of the illusion, however, remains deeply controversial among economists who worry about its long-term costs to public trust. When workers receive a five percent raise in a year when prices have climbed five percent as well, their real purchasing power has not changed at all, yet many still report feeling noticeably better off. ( ① ) This tendency to judge economic well-being by nominal figures printed on a paycheck, rather than by what that money can actually purchase, is known among economists as money illusion. ( ② ) Employers exploit this pattern by favoring modest nominal raises over deeper structural adjustments, since a visible increase on a payslip satisfies employees more effectively than an explanation about inflation could. ( ③ ) The illusion persists even among people who claim to understand inflation well, which suggests that the bias operates at an intuitive level that formal knowledge does not easily override. ( ④ ) Some economists argue that policymakers should exploit this illusion strategically, since workers resist nominal wage cuts far more fiercely than they resist the equivalent erosion of real wages. ( ⑤ ) Whatever position one takes, ignoring money illusion in wage policy risks badly misjudging how people will respond.