영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Conventional economic wisdom holds that more options are always preferable to fewer, since a larger set of alternatives increases the likelihood that any individual will find one that precisely ①matches their preferences. Empirical research on consumer behavior, however, complicates this assumption considerably. When shoppers are presented with an extensive array of choices, they frequently experience heightened anxiety about making the wrong selection and, paradoxically, ②become less likely to make any purchase or decision at all. This phenomenon, commonly ③called choice overload, arises because evaluating numerous alternatives demands considerable cognitive effort, and the fear of forgoing a superior but unexamined option can overwhelm the pleasure of selecting from a limited set. Furthermore, individuals who do eventually choose from an overwhelming array often ④reports lower satisfaction with their selection than those who chose from a modest handful of options. Businesses that recognize this dynamic have begun deliberately ⑤curating smaller, carefully selected assortments.

German sociologist Georg Simmel argued that the psychological experience of city life differs fundamentally from life in small towns, primarily because urban residents are ①bombarded with a much greater volume of stimuli than the human nervous system evolved to process. To cope with this constant sensory overload, Simmel proposed, city dwellers develop what he called a blasé attitude, a protective indifference in which individuals mentally ②sharpen their emotional reaction to the surrounding crowd, treating most encounters with calculated detachment rather than genuine engagement. This detachment, while sometimes criticized as cold or impersonal, also grants urban residents a distinctive ③freedom, since so few people know or judge them personally. Simmel therefore viewed anonymity as a ④double-edged feature of modern life, one that isolates individuals from deep communal bonds while simultaneously ⑤liberating them from the constant surveillance of small-town social life.

Individuals confronted with a set of options frequently default to whichever alternative requires no active decision at all. Decision-makers often treat the current arrangement as a reasonable ①baseline simply because it already exists, even when switching would plainly serve their interests better. When employees must actively opt into a retirement savings plan, participation rates remain stubbornly ②low; yet when the same plan is presented as automatic unless an employee opts out, participation rises ③dramatically, despite the fact that the underlying financial terms are identical in both cases. Two forces appear to drive this asymmetry: first, the cognitive effort required to evaluate alternatives and initiate change, and second, an aversion to the potential regret that might follow an active decision that turns out poorly. Because inaction carries no such vivid regret, the status quo comes to feel ④riskier than it objectively is, illustrating how mere inertia can ⑤masquerade as a deliberate preference.

Why do people often overvalue objects they have partly built themselves, even when the finished product is objectively inferior to something they could have simply purchased? This puzzle, which researchers named after a furniture retailer famous for selling items that require home assembly, challenges the standard economic assumption that value is determined solely by an object's inherent qualities. In a series of experiments, participants who assembled a plain storage box were willing to pay nearly as much for their own imperfect creation as they were for a professionally built version, despite being fully aware of its flaws. Labor, it seems, functions as a kind of psychological investment: once effort has been poured into a task, _______________. This tendency helps explain why consumers often prefer products that demand some degree of personal assembly, even when a comparable finished item is available at a lower price and requires no time investment whatsoever.

Every time a smartphone connects to a network, it records a data point that can later map where its owner has been. The real danger emerges when location data from multiple sources is combined. Companies often argue that anonymized data cannot be traced back to individuals, yet researchers have repeatedly shown that _______________. As a result, privacy experts increasingly insist that location data deserves the same legal protection as medical records.

Confirmation bias becomes particularly consequential in political discourse, where citizens must evaluate competing claims about complex issues. (A) As a result, exposure to more information does not necessarily produce more accurate beliefs; it can instead deepen existing divisions by giving each side additional material that appears to validate its own position. (B) Voters who favor a particular policy tend to seek out news sources and commentators who share that view, while largely avoiding those who might challenge it. (C) This selective consumption means that two people examining ostensibly the same news environment can end up with radically different, mutually reinforcing interpretations of events.

Social media platforms rarely show users a neutral stream of information. (A) Over time, users exposed to a steady diet of emotionally charged content may come to believe that extreme opinions are far more common than they actually are. (B) Instead, recommendation algorithms are optimized to maximize engagement, and content that provokes strong emotion tends to hold attention longer than balanced reporting ever could. (C) Researchers describe this as a distorted mirror: the platform reflects not society as it truly is, but a version shaped by whatever keeps people scrolling.

주어진 문장: Taken together, these shortcomings suggest that biodegradability alone cannot guarantee a meaningful reduction in plastic pollution. 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. ① Manufacturers derive these materials from renewable resources such as corn starch, blending them with additives that accelerate microbial breakdown once discarded. ② However, their environmental benefits are often exaggerated, largely because decomposition depends on specific conditions rarely found outside industrial composting facilities. ③ 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. ④ In addition, when mixed with conventional plastics in recycling streams, they can contaminate the process, weakening the quality of materials produced afterward. ⑤ 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. ① ② ③ ④ ⑤

During recent years, this gap became impossible to ignore, as families in rural areas or low-income neighborhoods struggled to complete schoolwork that assumed a stable connection and a personal device. As more schools shift toward digital textbooks and online assignments, a student without reliable internet access at home faces a disadvantage that has little to do with talent or effort. ( ① ) Some policymakers initially treated internet access as a convenience, comparable to cable television, rather than as infrastructure essential to modern life. ( ② ) That assumption is increasingly being reconsidered, particularly as more essential services move online by default. ( ③ ) Closing this divide will require more than simply distributing devices. ( ④ ) It will demand sustained investment in the physical networks that carry information into every home, regardless of income or location. ( ⑤ )

The reason, he insisted, lies outside the speaker's mind entirely, in the actual chemical composition of the substance being referred to. Imagine a distant planet identical to Earth in every visible respect, except that the clear liquid its inhabitants call "water" is not H2O but a different compound, XYZ, that happens to look, taste, and behave exactly the same. ( ① ) When an Earthling and a Twin Earthling each say the word "water," they seem to mean the same thing, since neither could tell the substances apart without a chemistry lab. ( ② ) Philosopher Hilary Putnam used this scenario to argue that the meaning of a word is not determined solely by what happens inside a speaker's head. ( ③ ) Even though the two speakers hold identical thoughts and mental images when they use the word, their statements refer to two different substances. ( ④ ) Meaning, Putnam concluded, depends partly on the world outside the mind, not merely on the private mental states of whoever happens to be speaking. ( ⑤ )