영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Facing a shortage of caregivers and a rapidly aging population, several countries have begun ①deploying robots designed to remind elderly residents to take medication, monitor for falls, and even offer simple conversation throughout the day. Early trials show that many residents report ②reduced loneliness, particularly when a robot's presence allows an overworked human staff member to spend a few extra minutes with each patient rather than ③rushing between rooms. Critics, however, worry that this framing quietly shifts the goal of care: instead of asking how technology can support human connection, institutions may come to treat a robot's companionship as an acceptable substitute for it, especially in facilities already ④struggle with tight budgets. Advocates for the elderly argue that robots should be evaluated strictly as tools that free up human time for human contact, never as a lower-cost replacement for the contact itself, which ⑤remains irreplaceable.

Economists traditionally measured a community's wealth in terms of factories, income, or infrastructure, yet sociologists increasingly point to a less visible resource: social capital, the networks of trust and reciprocity ①that allow people to cooperate for mutual benefit. Robert Putnam popularized the concept by ②documenting a decline in civic participation, noting that fewer Americans joined bowling leagues, parent associations, or local clubs even as bowling itself remained popular, a trend he ③captured in the phrase bowling alone. Communities rich in social capital tend to enjoy lower crime and more effective local government, because neighbors ④who 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 exclude outsiders and ⑤reinforcing existing inequality.

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.

As efforts to ①curb greenhouse gas emissions intensify, industries unable to eliminate carbon dioxide from their processes have turned to a technology known as carbon capture and storage. This technology involves separating carbon dioxide from the exhaust of power plants before it is released into the atmosphere, then transporting the captured gas for underground injection. Once injected into porous rock formations, the gas is trapped beneath layers of impermeable rock that prevent it from escaping into the air. Proponents argue that carbon capture and storage functions as a bridge technology, allowing heavy industries to keep operating while more sustainable alternatives are ②developed. For instance, cement and steel production, both of which release carbon dioxide as an ③unavoidable byproduct of chemical reactions, are considered prime candidates for this approach. However, critics contend that the technology remains prohibitively ④cheap and that building pipelines requires investments few companies make voluntarily. Despite such concerns, many governments continue funding pilot projects, convinced that this technology will play an ⑤indispensable role in reaching emission targets.

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.

Emissions trading, a market-based mechanism for curbing greenhouse gases, allows governments to set an overall limit on carbon output while letting firms trade permits within that limit. Under this system, known as cap-and-trade, companies that cut emissions more ①cheaply than required can sell surplus allowances to firms facing higher reduction costs. Proponents argue that this flexibility lets society reach a given environmental target at the ②lowest overall cost, since abatement shifts toward whoever can achieve it most economically. Critics, however, contend that trading schemes frequently allocate too many permits, a flaw that has historically ③depressed carbon prices and blunted incentives to invest in cleaner technology. For example, early phases of several regional markets granted allowances so generously that permit prices ④collapsed, leaving polluters with little pressure to change their practices. Consequently, many economists now advocate combining trading with a price floor, a minimum permit price that keeps the market from collapsing during weak demand, thereby ⑤undermining the cost-effectiveness for which trading is valued.

Labeling theory approaches deviance not as a ①fixed property of certain acts, but as a social process created when powerful groups attach a negative label to a person's behavior. According to this view, nearly everyone breaks minor rules at some point, yet only some individuals are ②singled out, caught, and formally branded as delinquents, criminals, or troublemakers. Sociologist Howard Becker argued that this label often becomes what he called a master status, a single identity that ③overshadows every other trait a person has. Once labeled, an individual may find legitimate opportunities ④expanding, pushing them toward the very community of offenders that the label predicted they would join. This process, sometimes called secondary deviance, illustrates how social reaction can produce the outcome it claims merely to describe, a pattern critics see as deeply ⑤troubling.

Suppose a mysterious being with a near-perfect track record of predicting human choices presents a player with two boxes. Box A always contains a visible thousand dollars, while Box B contains either a million dollars or nothing at all, depending on a prediction the being made before the game even began. If the being predicted the player would take only Box B, it placed a million dollars inside; if it predicted the player would take both boxes, it left Box B empty. The player may choose to take only Box B, or to take both boxes, and the prediction has already been made and cannot change. One line of reasoning says taking both boxes is strictly better, since whatever is already inside the boxes cannot be altered by the player's choice at this point. A second line of reasoning says taking only Box B is better, since the being's near-perfect accuracy means that choosing both boxes almost guarantees an empty Box B. _______________.

When anthropologists first began systematically studying societies far removed from their own, many unconsciously judged unfamiliar customs against the standards of their home culture, a tendency now known as ethnocentrism. Cultural relativism emerged as a corrective principle, holding that a society's practices should be understood within their own cultural context rather than measured against an outside standard presumed to be universal. Cultural relativism transformed fields ranging from anthropology to international development, encouraging researchers to suspend quick judgment and seek local meaning before drawing conclusions. Critics caution, however, that _______________.

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.