영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Individuals rarely evaluate their own lives in isolation; instead, they measure their achievements, possessions, and status against a reference group, a set of people they use as a standard for comparison. This group ①need not be one to which a person actually belongs. A struggling artist may judge success not against neighbors but against celebrated painters in art history, a comparison ②that can inspire ambition or, just as easily, breed persistent dissatisfaction. Sociologists distinguish between normative reference groups, which shape a person's values and behavior, and comparative reference groups, ③which merely provide a benchmark for self-assessment. Robert Merton showed that soldiers who compared their promotion chances to peers within their own slow-moving unit often felt more satisfied than soldiers in units with faster promotion rates, because the latter could see colleagues ④advance while they themselves ⑤lagging behind.

When sociologist Émile Durkheim studied suicide rates across different societies, he noticed something ①puzzling: rates rose not only during economic depression but also during sudden prosperity. He concluded that both crises share a common feature, the collapse of shared norms that once told individuals what to expect and how ②to behave. Durkheim called this state of normlessness anomie, arguing that rapid social change can strip away the moral guidelines ③what regulate human desire, leaving individuals disoriented even when material conditions improve. Decades later, Robert Merton extended the concept to explain deviance within stable societies, ④proposing that anomie also arises when a culture insists that everyone pursue identical goals. Faced with this gap between aspiration and opportunity, some individuals conform, but others turn to innovation, ritual, retreat, ⑤or rebellion.

Symbolic interactionism approaches society not as a fixed structure imposed from above but as something continuously ①constructed through everyday face-to-face interaction, in which individuals interpret and respond to the symbolic meanings that objects, actions, and other people hold for them. Sociologist George Herbert Mead argued that the self itself ②emerges through this interactive process, as individuals learn to see themselves from the perspective of others, gradually ③internalizing what he called the generalized other. Erving Goffman extended this framework with his dramaturgical approach, comparing social life to a theatrical performance in which individuals manage impressions, present different faces in different settings, and carefully control what audiences ④see backstage versus onstage. Unlike structural theories that emphasize large institutions, symbolic interactionism focuses on the small, repeated exchanges through which shared meaning ⑤negotiating.

Cities are frequently several degrees ①cooler than the surrounding countryside, a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect, which intensifies in summer and threatens public health. This disparity arises largely because asphalt and concrete absorb solar radiation during the day and slowly release it as heat throughout the night, preventing urban areas from cooling down. Furthermore, the ②scarcity of vegetation in densely built areas removes a natural cooling mechanism, since plants lower temperatures by evaporating water from their leaves. One widely used solution involves reflective "cool" roofing engineered to ③reflect more sunlight than dark rooftops absorb. In contrast, some cities have pursued permeable pavements that let water seep through and evaporate, ④cooling nearby surfaces. Collectively, these strategies show that reducing urban heat depends on ⑤combining approaches suited to a city's geography.

Economists traditionally measured a community's wealth in terms of factories, income, or infrastructure, yet sociologists increasingly point to a less ①visible resource: social capital, the networks of trust and reciprocity that allow people to cooperate for mutual benefit. Robert Putnam popularized the concept by documenting a ②decline in civic participation, noting that fewer Americans joined bowling leagues, parent associations, or local clubs even as bowling itself remained popular. Communities rich in social capital tend to enjoy ③lower crime and more effective local government, because neighbors who know and trust one another can coordinate informally without relying entirely on formal institutions. However, social capital is not uniformly beneficial; tightly bonded networks can also ④welcome outsiders and reinforce existing inequality. For this reason, researchers increasingly distinguish between bonding capital and bridging capital, which ⑤connects otherwise separate communities.

Imagine a man locked inside a room who does not understand a single word of Chinese, yet who possesses a giant rulebook written entirely in English. Slips of paper covered with Chinese characters are passed in through a slot, and by following the rulebook's instructions step by step, he produces replies that appear fluent to anyone outside. From the perspective of a native speaker reading the responses, the room seems to understand Chinese perfectly. Yet the man inside understands nothing at all; he is merely manipulating shapes according to formal rules, without grasping their meaning. This scenario was designed to challenge the assumption that a computer running a sophisticated program truly understands language simply because it produces convincing output. Passing every external test of intelligence, the argument suggests, is not the same as possessing genuine understanding, since _______________.

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 same technology, researchers realized, could be pushed even further, from generic drug screening toward medicine tailored to a single individual. A liver no longer has to sit inside a human body to be studied closely. ( ① ) 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 despite being no larger than a grain of rice. ( ② ) Unlike flat cultures grown on a plastic dish, which lose many of the cues that guide normal development, organoids let cells interact in three dimensions much as they would inside the body. ( ③ ) This yields tissue that behaves in strikingly realistic ways. ( ④ ) This fidelity has made organoids invaluable for testing how a drug affects human tissue before any patient is exposed, sparing researchers much of the burden of relying on animal models alone. ( ⑤ ) 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.

Left undisturbed for several days, this arrangement of fibers slowly takes on the texture that consumers associate with real meat. A hamburger patty need not come from a slaughtered animal at all if a small sample of muscle cells can be persuaded to multiply inside a steel tank. ( ① ) Cultured meat begins with a biopsy of animal muscle tissue, from which scientists isolate cells capable of dividing repeatedly, then feed those cells a nutrient broth that supplies the sugars, proteins, and minerals an animal's bloodstream would normally provide. ( ② ) Inside a bioreactor, the cells multiply across scaffolding designed to encourage them to align into fibers. ( ③ ) This gradual process thickens the tissue into something that begins to resemble muscle rather than a shapeless clump of cells. ( ④ ) Supporters argue that because the process never requires raising and slaughtering a whole animal, it could shrink the land, water, and greenhouse gas emissions associated with conventional meat production. ( ⑤ ) Skeptics counter that producing the specialized broth at a large enough scale remains prohibitively expensive, meaning cultured meat is unlikely to compete with conventional meat in price until the technology matures considerably further.

He termed the resulting gap cultural lag, describing the friction that appears when institutions have not yet caught up with new technological realities. Sociologist William Ogburn observed that when a society undergoes technological change, its material culture, meaning tools and inventions, tends to advance faster than its nonmaterial culture, meaning norms, laws, and values. ( ① ) The rise of the automobile, for instance, transformed daily mobility long before traffic laws, insurance systems, and urban planning fully adapted to the risks it introduced. ( ② ) 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 settled questions about its use. ( ③ ) Cultural lag theory reminds us that technological progress is not automatically matched by social progress. ( ④ ) The resulting gap can produce confusion or exploitation until laws and customs eventually adjust to new material conditions. ( ⑤ )