영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Long before humans learned to drill for oil, microorganisms had already mastered the art of ①converting sunlight and carbon dioxide into stored chemical energy. Modern biofuel research borrows this ability, cultivating algae or engineered bacteria in large tanks where they can be ②coaxed into producing oils and sugars that can be refined into fuel usable in existing engines. Unlike crops grown for corn-based ethanol, which compete directly with food production for arable land, many algae strains can ③thrive in shallow ponds, wastewater, or even coastal seawater unsuitable for conventional agriculture. Engineers have also learned to tinker with the metabolic pathways of these organisms, ④boosted oil yield far beyond what any wild strain would naturally produce on its own. Despite this progress, producing biofuel at a cost competitive with fossil fuel remains difficult, since harvesting and processing the organisms consumes a substantial share of the energy the fuel itself will eventually ⑤provide.

Long before calculus existed, the Greek philosopher Zeno constructed a series of paradoxes designed to show that motion itself might be logically ①impossible. In one version, a swift runner named Achilles races a slow-moving tortoise that is given a modest head start. Common sense insists that Achilles will quickly ②overtake the tortoise, yet Zeno's argument suggests otherwise. By the time Achilles reaches the tortoise's starting point, the tortoise has crawled a little further ahead, and this process repeats endlessly, generating an infinite number of ③smaller and smaller gaps that Achilles must apparently cross one after another. Zeno concluded that Achilles could never actually catch the tortoise, a conclusion that plainly ④contradicts everyday experience. Modern mathematics eventually resolved the paradox by showing that an infinite series of shrinking distances can still sum to a finite total, ⑤preventing motion from ever being completed in a finite amount of time.

Identical information can provoke strikingly different reactions depending on how it is worded, a phenomenon economists call the framing effect. Patients told that a surgical procedure carries a ninety percent survival rate tend to ①consent to it far more readily than patients told that the same procedure carries a ten percent mortality rate. This discrepancy arises because language does more than transmit facts; it also supplies an ②emotional lens through which those facts are interpreted. Positive framing, which emphasizes what will be ③preserved or gained, tends to encourage risk-averse choices, whereas negative framing, which emphasizes what might be lost, often pushes people toward ④safer alternatives in an attempt to avoid the loss altogether. Marketers, healthcare providers, and policymakers alike ⑤exploit this asymmetry, sometimes to help audiences make sounder decisions and sometimes merely to steer them toward a predetermined conclusion.

For decades, memory researchers assumed that repetition alone determined how well information would be retained, an assumption that an influential theory proposed by Craik and Lockhart eventually overturned. According to their framework, what matters most is _______________. Shallow processing, which involves attending merely to superficial features such as the shape of letters or the sound of a word, produces memory traces that fade quickly and remain vulnerable to interference. Elaborative processing, by contrast, requires connecting new information to existing knowledge, generating meaningful associations, and analyzing semantic content, thereby producing traces that are considerably more durable. Consequently, a student who merely repeats a definition aloud without considering its implications is less likely to retain it than one who relates the concept to a personal example. This distinction reshaped educational practice, encouraging teachers to design tasks that demand comprehension rather than mechanical repetition, since durable memory depends on the depth, not the frequency, of cognitive engagement.

A cricket contains, gram for gram, roughly as much protein as beef, yet requires a small 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 remarkable efficiency, since they are cold-blooded and therefore spend far less energy regulating body temperature than a cow or pig must. _______________. Food companies have responded by grinding insects into a flour that disappears into protein bars, pasta, and baked goods, letting consumers benefit from the nutrition without ever having to look an insect in the eye.

A liver no longer has to sit inside a human body to be studied closely. By coaxing stem cells to organize themselves within a nutrient-rich gel, scientists can now grow miniature three-dimensional structures called organoids, which reproduce much of the architecture and function of a real organ. Unlike flat cultures grown on a plastic dish, organoids let cells interact in three dimensions much as they would inside the body, yielding tissue that behaves in strikingly realistic ways. This fidelity has made organoids invaluable for testing how a drug affects human tissue before any patient is exposed, _______________. Some laboratories have even grown organoids from a single patient's own cells, raising the possibility of trialing a treatment on a miniature copy of that patient's organ before committing to an actual course of therapy.

Retailers have discovered practical ways to counteract the negative effects of choice overload without simply reducing the number of products they offer. (A) One common strategy involves organizing an extensive product catalog into clearly labeled categories and subcategories, allowing customers to narrow their search gradually rather than confronting the entire array at once. (B) Another approach highlights a small number of curated recommendations, such as "staff picks" or "best sellers," giving hesitant customers a reasonable starting point without eliminating other options entirely. (C) Both strategies share a common principle: they do not reduce the objective number of choices available but instead reduce the cognitive burden of navigating them.

Loss aversion does not only influence individual financial choices; it also shapes how information is presented and interpreted in everyday transactions, a phenomenon that marketers and policymakers have learned to exploit deliberately. (A) For example, a retailer who frames a price reduction as "avoid losing a $10 discount by ordering today" typically generates a stronger customer response than one who simply advertises "get a $10 discount," even though both messages describe an identical saving. (B) In other words, the manner in which a choice is presented can activate the same psychological aversion to loss that governs decisions about resources already possessed, meaning that framing itself carries real economic weight. (C) This effect is not confined to retail settings, however; negotiators, too, often treat concessions as losses rather than as steps toward mutual gain, which makes compromise feel more costly than it objectively is.

Biodegradable plastics have been promoted as a promising solution to plastic waste, since they are designed to decompose into natural substances rather than persist for centuries. (A) For example, a bag labeled biodegradable may take years, not the weeks advertised, to break down in a landfill or ocean, where temperature and microbial activity remain low. In addition, when mixed with conventional plastics in recycling streams, they can contaminate the process, weakening the quality of materials produced afterward. (B) Some engineers therefore compare biodegradable plastics to a bridge that leads nowhere unless paired with infrastructure that completes the journey. Ultimately, realizing their genuine potential requires not only technological refinement but also facilities capable of providing the precise conditions decomposition demands. (C) Manufacturers derive these materials from renewable resources such as corn starch, blending them with additives that accelerate microbial breakdown once discarded. However, their environmental benefits are often exaggerated, largely because decomposition depends on specific conditions rarely found outside industrial composting facilities.

The lining, weakened in this way, no longer functions as the tight barrier it is meant to be. The human gut hosts trillions of microorganisms whose combined genetic material outnumbers that of the human genome itself many times over. ( ① ) Once dismissed as passive hitchhikers, these bacteria are now understood to actively shape digestion, regulate immune responses, and even influence the production of chemicals that affect mood and behavior. ( ② ) A microbiome disrupted by antibiotics, poor diet, or chronic stress can leave the gut lining more permeable than it should be. ( ③ ) This allows substances to leak into the bloodstream that would normally stay contained. ( ④ ) Researchers studying this connection have found that transplanting gut bacteria from a healthy donor into a patient can, in some cases, relieve symptoms of certain digestive disorders that conventional medication had failed to treat. ( ⑤ ) Still, scientists caution that the microbiome varies enormously between individuals, which means a treatment that restores balance in one person's gut may do little for someone else's.