영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Blockchain technology was originally promoted as a way ①to remove the need for trusted middlemen, allowing strangers to exchange value directly and verify transactions through a shared, tamper-resistant ledger rather than through a bank or government agency. In theory, this design ②distributes power away from any single institution and toward the network as a whole. In practice, however, a small number of large players have come to dominate many blockchain networks, ③controlled enough computing power or currency to influence outcomes that were supposed to be decided collectively. Critics note a further irony: when something goes wrong, there is often no institution left ④to appeal to, since the entire system was designed precisely to eliminate that kind of central authority. Whether decentralization can survive this concentration of power ⑤remains one of the technology's most unresolved questions.

Few ideas in policy debate ①provoke as much philosophical unease as the notion that a government might deliberately steer citizens toward better choices while leaving every option technically available. Defenders insist that freedom is preserved as long as no option is banned and no penalty is attached, ②arguing that a citizen who is merely steered, rather than coerced, remains free to choose otherwise. Critics counter that this defense rests on an impoverished notion of liberty, one that ③ignores how engineered defaults and calculated framing can shape decisions just as powerfully as an outright prohibition would. If a policy is designed because officials expect it to bypass conscious deliberation, these critics ask, can the resulting choice still ④call autonomous, even though no law was broken? The dispute ultimately turns on what freedom actually ⑤requires: the mere absence of coercion, or a decision-making process that remains transparent and undistorted.

City governments increasingly market dense networks of surveillance cameras as a straightforward safety upgrade, ①promising faster emergency response and lower crime rates. In many cases, the technology delivers exactly what it promises, ②helping investigators identify suspects within hours rather than weeks. Yet the same infrastructure that catches criminals also creates a permanent record of where ordinary, law-abiding citizens ③go about their daily lives. Once a camera network exists, its purpose can quietly expand, often without new public debate or explicit approval. 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 ④is already impossible removing. Convenience installed today, in other words, can quietly ⑤become control tomorrow.

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 ①emptied the box entirely; 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 ②strictly 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 ③accuracy means that choosing both boxes almost guarantees an empty Box B. This apparent ④conflict between two seemingly sound arguments has made the puzzle a lasting ⑤challenge for decision theory.

A biosensor works by pairing a biological component, such as an enzyme or antibody, with an electronic device that converts a biological reaction into a signal a computer can ①read. When the target molecule, whether glucose in blood or a trace of a pathogen, binds to the biological component, it triggers a ②massive measurable change that the device translates into a readable number. This design has already transformed diabetes management, letting patients monitor blood sugar ③continuously through a small sensor worn under the skin rather than pricking a finger several times a day. Engineers are now racing to extend the same principle to detect subtler targets, from cancer cells circulating in the bloodstream to trace ④contaminants in drinking water. The central challenge is not detecting the target but doing so reliably outside a controlled laboratory, since a sensor that performs well on a clean lab bench can behave ⑤erratically once exposed to a real body or a real river.

Imagine two travelers preparing for the same trip: one ①agrees to fly after watching news coverage of a recent plane crash, while the other books a flight without hesitation. Statistically, air travel remains far ②safer than driving the same distance by car, yet vivid, emotionally charged images tend to ③dominate human judgment more powerfully than dry statistics ever could. This tendency, in which people estimate how likely an event is based on how easily examples come to mind rather than on actual data, quietly shapes countless everyday decisions. News broadcasts that repeatedly feature rare disasters can leave viewers convinced that such events are ④common, even though official records clearly show the opposite. Advertisers and politicians alike ⑤exploit this pattern, knowing that a single striking anecdote often persuades audiences more effectively than pages of careful statistics ever manage to.

Time travel to the past has long fascinated physicists and philosophers alike, but it also generates a famously troubling contradiction. Suppose a traveler journeyed backward in time and, through some combination of accident and intention, prevented their own grandfather from ever meeting their grandmother. If the grandfather never had children, the traveler themselves would never have been born, which means the traveler could never have existed to make the trip in the first place. Yet if the traveler never made the trip, the grandfather would have survived to meet the grandmother after all, allowing the traveler to be born and eventually travel back in time. The story therefore loops endlessly, undermining itself at every turn rather than settling into any stable outcome. Some physicists resolve the paradox by arguing that _______________.

For patients born with a single faulty gene, the disease has traditionally been treated indirectly, managing symptoms for a lifetime rather than addressing the genetic error itself. (A) Early trials were haunted by serious setbacks, including cases in which the delivery virus triggered a dangerous immune reaction, but refined delivery methods have since made the treatment considerably safer, leading regulators in several countries to approve gene therapies for a small but growing number of rare inherited disorders. (B) Gene therapy attempts something more ambitious: delivering a corrected copy of the gene directly into a patient's cells, often using a disabled virus stripped of its ability to cause illness as a delivery vehicle. (C) Once inside the nucleus, the corrected gene can begin producing the protein the patient's body had always lacked, in some cases reversing symptoms that medication alone had never been able to touch.

Change blindness refers to a striking limitation of human perception in which observers fail to notice substantial alterations to a visual scene, provided the change occurs during a brief disruption such as an eye movement or a momentary obstruction. (A) In a now-famous demonstration, researchers showed participants two versions of a photograph in alternation, separated by a short blank screen, and asked them to identify what had changed. Even when an entire building disappeared or a person's clothing shifted color, many viewers stared at the picture without detecting anything unusual. (B) Consequently, change blindness demonstrates that our impression of a rich, complete visual world is, to a surprising extent, an illusion constructed by the mind, not a faithful record of external reality. (C) This phenomenon occurs because visual attention, rather than passively recording every detail like a camera, actively selects only a narrow subset of information for processing at any given moment. Whatever falls outside that narrow spotlight is represented only sparsely, if at all, leaving it vulnerable to being overwritten without notice.

Turning this tide has proven far harder than creating it, and not merely for scientific reasons. Every time an antibiotic kills off a population of bacteria, a handful of cells carrying a random mutation that resists the drug are left behind to multiply without competition. ( ① ) Repeated over decades, across hospitals, farms, and households worldwide, this simple process of natural selection has produced strains of bacteria that survive treatments once considered reliably effective. ( ② ) The pharmaceutical industry, meanwhile, has slowed the pace at which new antibiotics reach the market, since a drug meant to be taken for only a week or two rarely earns back the enormous cost of developing it. ( ③ ) Researchers are therefore searching in unconventional places, screening soil microbes and ocean sediment for molecules that kill bacteria through new mechanisms. ( ④ ) Even genetic databases are now mined for such molecules, ones resistant strains have not yet learned to evade. ( ⑤ ) Some scientists have also revived an older approach, using viruses that infect only bacteria to hunt down resistant strains with a precision no broad-spectrum drug could ever match.