영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Desalination, the process of ①removing dissolved salts from seawater to produce fresh water, has increasingly been adopted by coastal regions facing chronic water scarcity. Most modern facilities rely on reverse osmosis, a technique in which seawater is ②forced 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. 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 ③harms marine life. Pumping seawater through membranes at high pressure also ④demands substantial electricity, so plants powered by fossil fuels can worsen the emissions that intensify drought. Therefore, engineers increasingly argue that desalination should be ⑤treated not as a stand-alone remedy but as one component of a broader conservation strategy.

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, ①treating money differently depending on its source or intended purpose, a process economists call mental accounting. A household that would never dip into its retirement savings to pay for a vacation might nonetheless spend an unexpected bonus on that very trip without hesitation, even though both sums ②are, in strictly financial terms, equally available for either purpose. This compartmentalization can produce decisions that appear inconsistent when viewed through a purely rational lens: the same individual who diligently saves a portion of every paycheck may simultaneously ③carrying high-interest credit card debt, effectively paying more to borrow than they earn on their savings. Mental accounting is not always harmful, however; by assigning specific categories to specific funds, individuals can also impose useful discipline on their spending, ④preventing money earmarked for essential needs from being diverted toward impulsive purchases. The practice thus reveals that financial behavior is guided less by pure arithmetic than by psychological categories that individuals ⑤impose on money's origin and purpose.

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.

Classical economic models typically assume that people discount future rewards at a constant rate, valuing a reward received later somewhat less than an identical reward received now, but doing so ①consistently across all time horizons. Empirical observation, however, reveals a different pattern: people apply a much ②steeper discount to the immediate future than to the distant future. When the reward or cost in question lies safely in the future, its emotional weight remains ③vivid, allowing rational long-term goals to dominate one's stated intentions. Once that same reward or cost draws near, however, its immediacy triggers a disproportionately strong emotional pull, frequently ④overriding the very plans made earlier with such apparent confidence. This dynamic helps explain chronic procrastination, since tasks that carry long-term benefits are perpetually ⑤deferred in favor of activities offering more immediate satisfaction.

Suppose you meet a quiet, gentle man who speaks softly, tends a small garden, and organizes his bookshelf with meticulous care. Asked whether he is more likely a florist or a truck driver, most people instinctively choose florist, since his personality matches the stereotype so neatly. This judgment, however, ignores a crucial fact: _______________, which means that, statistically, he is far more likely to belong to the larger group regardless of how well he fits the flower-shop image. Relying on resemblance to a familiar category rather than on underlying numerical proportions leads people to overlook these base rates almost automatically.

Social proof does not operate uniformly; its influence intensifies under specific conditions. (A) It grows especially powerful, for instance, when the situation is ambiguous and individuals lack a clear, independent basis for judging the correct course of action. (B) Conversely, when a task offers unambiguous, verifiable evidence, individuals rely far less on the behavior of others, since they can evaluate the situation directly for themselves. (C) This contrast implies that social proof functions primarily as a substitute for missing information, stepping in precisely where individual certainty runs out.

Imagine two travelers preparing for the same trip: one refuses to fly after watching news coverage of a recent plane crash, while the other books a flight without hesitation. (A) This tendency, in which people estimate how likely an event is based on how easily examples come to mind rather than on actual data, quietly shapes countless everyday decisions. (B) Statistically, air travel remains far safer than driving the same distance by car, yet vivid, emotionally charged images tend to dominate human judgment more powerfully than dry statistics ever could. (C) News broadcasts that repeatedly feature rare disasters can leave viewers convinced that such events are common, even though official records clearly show the opposite. Advertisers and politicians alike exploit this pattern, knowing that a single striking anecdote often persuades audiences more effectively than pages of careful statistics ever manage to. Recognizing why memorable examples overshadow objective probability therefore matters, both for making sound personal choices and for noticing when public fear has drifted far from measurable reality.

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: Such consistency across repeated trials suggests that the pattern is a genuine feature of human cognition, not random noise. In a classic experiment inspired by Keynes's beauty contest analogy, participants choose a number between zero and one hundred, and the winner is whoever selects the number closest to two-thirds of the average of all guesses submitted. ( ① ) A perfectly rational player, assuming every other participant reasons with unlimited depth, would conclude the equilibrium number is zero, since reasoning about others' reasoning collapses the average toward that single point. ( ② ) In practice, however, actual guesses rarely converge on zero; most participants stop reasoning after a round or two of imagining what others might guess, producing average guesses that cluster between twenty and thirty-five. ( ③ ) This gap between theoretical equilibrium and observed behavior reveals that human reasoning is bounded, capable of anticipating a few steps ahead but rarely capable of iterating the process indefinitely. ( ④ ) Economists use this game as a diagnostic tool, since the number a person submits reveals how many levels of strategic thinking that person is willing to perform. ( ⑤ ) This is a measure that idealized rational agents could never provide.

Convenience installed today, in other words, can quietly become control tomorrow. City governments increasingly market dense networks of surveillance cameras as a straightforward safety upgrade, promising faster emergency response and lower crime rates. ( ① ) In many cases, the technology delivers exactly what it promises, helping investigators identify suspects within hours rather than weeks. ( ② ) Yet the same infrastructure that catches criminals also creates a permanent record of where ordinary, law-abiding citizens go about their daily lives. ( ③ ) Once a camera network exists, its purpose can quietly expand, often without new public debate or explicit approval. ( ④ ) Civil liberties groups argue that a city should decide how much surveillance it wants before the cameras go up, not years afterward when the infrastructure is already impossible to remove. ( ⑤ )