영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

문제 1

Factories that once employed hundreds of workers on an assembly line now run with a fraction of that staff, as robotic arms handle tasks ①that used to require human hands. Economists have long debated whether this shift destroys jobs or simply ②transforms them. Historical evidence offers some comfort: previous waves of automation eventually created new categories of work that no one ③had predicted. However, critics point out that earlier transitions unfolded over generations, ④given workers time to retrain, whereas today's robots are being deployed at a pace that leaves little room for adjustment. For this reason, many economists argue that the real challenge is not the robots themselves, but the speed at which society ⑤is expected to adapt to them.

문제 2

Military researchers have developed weapons systems ①capable of identifying and engaging targets without a human pressing the final button, a prospect that has ②alarmed arms control experts for over a decade. Advocates within defense agencies argue that autonomous systems can react faster than any human operator and may even reduce casualties by removing fear and fatigue from split-second decisions. Human rights organizations counter that removing a person from the final decision ③strip away moral responsibility at the exact moment it matters most, since a machine cannot be held accountable in any meaningful sense. Diplomatic negotiations toward an international treaty have repeatedly ④stalled, partly because military powers disagree on how to define autonomy precisely enough to regulate it. Meanwhile, the underlying technology continues to advance regardless of ⑤whether the diplomacy meant to govern it keeps pace.

문제 3

Individuals rarely evaluate their own lives in ①isolation; instead, they measure their achievements, possessions, and status against a reference group, a set of people they use as a standard for comparison. A struggling artist may judge success not against neighbors but against celebrated painters in art history, a comparison that can inspire ambition or, just as easily, ②breed persistent dissatisfaction. Sociologists distinguish between normative reference groups, which shape a person's values and behavior, and comparative reference groups, which merely provide a ③benchmark 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 advancing while they themselves ④surpassed them. This counterintuitive finding demonstrates that satisfaction depends less on objective circumstances than on the group against which those circumstances are ⑤measured.

문제 4

Social mobility refers to the movement of individuals or families between different positions within a society's system of stratification, whether upward, downward, or sideways. Sociologists distinguish intragenerational mobility, changes within a single person's lifetime, from intergenerational mobility, differences between the social position of parents and their children. A society is often judged by how much intergenerational mobility it ①permits, since high mobility suggests that outcomes depend more on effort and ability than on the ②accident of birth. Structural mobility, caused by large-scale economic shifts such as the growth of new industries, must be distinguished from individual mobility, which results from a single person's particular choices. Research across many nations has found that education functions as the primary channel of upward mobility, yet access to quality education is itself ③evenly distributed, meaning the very mechanism meant to promote ④fairness can end up ⑤reproducing the inequality it was designed to overcome.

문제 5

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. (A) Weak ties, precisely because they connect otherwise separate networks, transmit novel information more efficiently than the redundant, overlapping ties within a tightly bonded group. (C) This finding, published as the strength of weak ties, rests on a structural insight: close friends tend to belong to the same tight social circle and therefore already share most of the same information. (B) Granovetter's insight has since been applied well beyond job searches, informing research on how innovations spread and how epidemics travel through a population.

문제 6

When sociologist Émile Durkheim studied suicide rates across different societies, he noticed something puzzling: rates rose not only during economic depression but also during sudden prosperity. (B) Decades later, Robert Merton extended the concept to explain deviance within stable societies, proposing that anomie also arises when a culture insists that everyone pursue identical goals while denying many people the legitimate means to achieve them. (A) He concluded that both crises share a common feature, the collapse of shared norms, a state Durkheim called anomie, arguing that rapid social change can strip away the moral guidelines that regulate human desire. (C) Faced with this gap between aspiration and opportunity, some individuals conform, but others turn to innovation, ritual, retreat, or rebellion.

문제 7

This reduction in cognitive burden, rather than a reduction in variety itself, appears to be the decisive factor in easing customers' decisions. An online retailer once tested how the size of a product display affected customer behavior. ( ① ) In one setting, customers encountered a table displaying twenty-four varieties of a specialty product, while in another setting they encountered a table displaying only six varieties. ( ② ) A larger proportion of customers stopped to sample items at the larger display, suggesting that abundance initially attracts attention and curiosity. ( ③ ) When it came to actual purchases, however, customers exposed to the smaller display were significantly more likely to buy something than those exposed to the larger one. ( ④ ) Follow-up interviews revealed that customers at the larger display often felt overwhelmed and uncertain about which option truly suited their preferences. ( ⑤ ) The retailer concluded that presenting a carefully limited selection, rather than an exhaustive one, could improve both sales and customer confidence.

문제 8

Convenience installed today, in other words, can quietly become control tomorrow. City governments increasingly market dense networks of surveillance cameras as a straightforward safety upgrade, promising faster emergency response and lower crime rates. ( ① ) In many cases, the technology delivers exactly what it promises, helping investigators identify suspects within hours rather than weeks. ( ② ) Yet the same infrastructure that catches criminals also creates a permanent record of where ordinary, law-abiding citizens go about their daily lives. ( ③ ) Once a camera network exists, its purpose can quietly expand, often without new public debate or explicit approval. ( ④ ) Civil liberties groups argue that a city should decide how much surveillance it wants before the cameras go up, not years afterward when the infrastructure is already impossible to remove. ( ⑤ )

문제 9

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.

문제 10

Janis identified several warning signs, including an illusion of invulnerability that leads a group to underestimate risk, pressure on dissenters to fall in line, and self-appointed mindguards who shield the group from information that might disrupt its confidence. Even highly capable individuals can make disastrous collective decisions once they are absorbed into a tightly knit group, a phenomenon psychologist Irving Janis termed groupthink. ( ① ) Within cohesive committees, boards, and advisory councils, members often prioritize consensus and group harmony over a rigorous evaluation of alternatives, silencing doubts rather than risking the discomfort of dissent. ( ② ) Sociologists extend this analysis beyond small committees, noting that entire organizations can develop cultures that reward conformity and punish employees who raise inconvenient questions. ( ③ ) Historical inquiries into policy failures and corporate disasters frequently reveal that critical information existed within the organization but never reached decision makers. ( ④ ) This was not because it was hidden, but because no one felt safe enough to voice it aloud. ( ⑤ )