영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Biodegradable plastics have been promoted as a promising solution to plastic waste, since they ①are designed to decompose into natural substances rather than persist for centuries. Manufacturers derive these materials from renewable resources such as corn starch, blending them with additives that ②accelerates microbial breakdown once discarded. However, their environmental benefits are often exaggerated, largely because decomposition depends on specific conditions rarely ③found outside industrial composting facilities. 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, ④weakening the quality of materials produced afterward. 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 ⑤providing the precise conditions decomposition demands.

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.

Rewilding, a conservation strategy that seeks to restore natural processes with minimal human interference, has gained attention as traditional conservation struggles to halt biodiversity loss. Rather than managing landscapes according to a ①fixed blueprint, rewilding projects often reintroduce key species, such as large predators, whose presence can trigger cascading effects. Advocates point to the reintroduction of wolves in certain parks, where predation altered grazing behavior, allowing riverside vegetation to ②decline and stabilizing soil that had long been eroding. Skeptics, however, warn that rewilding can provoke ③serious conflict with nearby communities, particularly when predators prey on livestock or restored habitats limit land for agriculture. Moreover, critics argue that restoring landscapes to an imagined pristine state is scientifically ④dubious, since ecosystems have long been shaped by human activity. Compensation programs reimbursing farmers for livestock losses, alongside ecotourism initiatives creating local income, have proven ⑤essential to sustaining public support.

When people are asked to judge how risky or beneficial a particular technology is, they ①often conduct anything resembling a careful cost-benefit analysis. Instead, they consult a quick emotional impression, an ②instinctive sense of whether the technology feels good or feels bad, and let that impression guide their entire judgment. This mental shortcut, known as the affect heuristic, produces a ③curious 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 presented a fictional industrial chemical alongside a brief description emphasizing its convenience, participants rated it not only as more useful but also, ④illogically, as less dangerous. Because emotional impressions form so rapidly and feel so trustworthy, correcting for this heuristic requires ⑤deliberate effort; simply presenting more accurate statistics to already anxious or enthusiastic audiences rarely changes their underlying judgment.

Memory researchers have long recognized that learning is not simply a matter of accumulating information without cost. Newly acquired material can collide with what the mind already holds, producing measurable disruptions ① in recall. When earlier knowledge interferes with the retrieval of information learned afterward, psychologists call this proactive ② interference. This phenomenon explains why someone who memorized an old phone number for years may struggle to recall a new one. Conversely, when material learned later undermines the recollection of something acquired earlier, the process is labeled retroactive interference. This second mechanism explains why switching to a new keyboard layout can temporarily improve ③ typing on a familiar one. Both processes suggest that memories compete for the same limited retrieval pathways ④ rather than resting in isolated compartments. This insight carries real implications for how students approach studying multiple similar subjects. Instead of cramming closely related material back to back, spacing out review sessions can reduce ⑤ competition between overlapping traces. Varying study contexts further helps preserve accuracy for both old and new information alike.

When engineers design the software that controls a self-driving car, they inevitably face a question that philosophers have debated for ①decades. If a crash becomes unavoidable, should the vehicle protect its own passenger at all costs, or should it be programmed to ②minimize total harm, even if that means steering toward the person inside? Surveys reveal an uncomfortable ③contradiction: most people say a car should be programmed to save the greater number of lives, yet the same people admit they would never buy a vehicle designed to sacrifice its own owner. This gap between the ideal and the personal choice suggests that ethical programming cannot be settled by public opinion alone. Manufacturers, regulators, and philosophers must instead agree on ④transparent rules before autonomous vehicles are ⑤forbidden to make such decisions on the road.

When people evaluate their personal contribution to water scarcity, they often consider only the water that flows directly from household taps, overlooking a far larger quantity consumed indirectly through the goods they purchase. The water footprint, a concept that extends this narrow view, _______________. Central to this concept is the notion of virtual water, the water embedded invisibly within a product, from irrigating cotton fields to livestock raised for meat. For instance, producing a kilogram of beef can require several thousand liters of water, whereas a kilogram of vegetables typically demands a fraction of that amount. Nations that import water-intensive goods rather than producing them domestically are importing virtual water from regions that may face severe shortages. Critics caution, however, that focusing exclusively on aggregate volume can mislead policymakers, since a liter of water drawn from a region suffering drought carries far greater consequences than one drawn from a water-abundant area.

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.

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. (A) 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. (B) 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. (C) Despite these advantages, insect protein has struggled to gain acceptance in many cultures, so food companies have responded by grinding insects into a flour that disappears into protein bars, pasta, and baked goods.

Weak ties, precisely because they connect otherwise separate networks, transmit novel information more efficiently than the redundant, overlapping ties within a tightly bonded group. Sociologist Mark Granovetter challenged a common assumption when he found that job seekers were more likely to hear about new opportunities from casual acquaintances than from close friends and family. ( ① ) This finding, published as the strength of weak ties, rests on a structural insight. ( ② ) Close friends tend to belong to the same tight social circle and therefore already share most of the same information. ( ③ ) Casual acquaintances, by contrast, typically move in different circles and can act as bridges to information a person would otherwise never encounter. ( ④ ) Granovetter's insight has since been applied well beyond job searches, informing research on how innovations spread and how epidemics travel through a population. ( ⑤ )