영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Behavioral economists have long observed that people tend to feel the pain of losing something more intensely than the pleasure of gaining an equivalent amount, a tendency ①known as loss aversion. This asymmetry, which ②was first documented through a series of carefully designed experiments, suggests that the psychological weight of a loss can be roughly twice that of a comparable gain. Consider an investor who refuses to sell a declining stock, ③clings to the hope that its price will eventually recover, even when all available evidence indicates that selling and reinvesting elsewhere would be more rational. Such behavior, though it ④appears irrational from a purely economic standpoint, becomes understandable once we recognize that the investor is trying to avoid the sharp discomfort associated with realizing a loss. Similarly, consumers often demand a much higher price to give up an item they already own than they would be ⑤willing to pay to acquire the same item in the first place.

Sensors buried in the soil now report moisture levels in real time, drones survey entire fields for signs of disease within minutes, and automated systems adjust irrigation without a farmer ever ①walking the rows. For large operations with the capital ②to invest, these tools have measurably increased yields while reducing water waste, addressing two problems that traditional farming has struggled with for generations. Smaller family farms, however, often cannot afford the upfront cost of this equipment, and some worry that the gap between high-tech and traditional operations will only ③widen as the technology advances further. There is also a quieter cultural cost that rarely appears in productivity reports: generations of farming knowledge, passed down through direct observation of soil, weather, and crops, risk ④being replaced by dashboards and automated alerts that few young farmers ⑤teaching to question.

When engineers design the software ①that controls a self-driving car, they inevitably face a question that philosophers have debated for decades. If a crash becomes unavoidable, should the vehicle protect its own passenger at all costs, or should it be programmed ②minimizing total harm, even if that means steering toward the person inside? Surveys reveal an uncomfortable contradiction: most people say a car should be programmed to save the greater number of lives, yet the same people admit ③they would never buy a vehicle designed to sacrifice its own owner. This gap between the ideal and the personal choice suggests that ethical programming cannot ④be settled by public opinion alone. Manufacturers, regulators, and philosophers must instead agree on transparent rules before autonomous vehicles ⑤are allowed to make such decisions on the road.

Why do people often ①overvalue objects they have partly built themselves, even when the finished product is objectively ②inferior 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 ③imperfect 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, individuals become ④reluctant to judge the outcome objectively, because doing so would require admitting that their effort was partly wasted. 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 ⑤higher price and requires no time investment whatsoever.

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. Manufacturers derive these materials from renewable resources such as corn starch, blending them with additives that accelerate microbial breakdown once discarded. However, _______________. 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. 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.

Consider a student who genuinely intends to study for tomorrow's exam yet, when the evening actually arrives, chooses to watch another episode of a favorite show instead, promising herself she will surely study harder next week. This pattern, in which the pull of an immediate pleasure overwhelms the value of a distant benefit, appears again and again across ordinary life, from postponed exercise to delayed savings. People do not necessarily fail to understand that the future reward matters more; rather, _______________. Behavioral economists note that this preference weakens considerably once both options are pushed into the future, which is why planning a diet starting next month feels effortless compared with skipping dessert tonight.

Generative AI systems learn to write, draw, and compose by studying enormous collections of existing human work. Supporters argue that this resembles how a human student learns by studying the masters. Critics respond that the comparison breaks down at scale: _______________. Courts around the world are now being asked to decide whether training an algorithm on copyrighted material counts as fair use or as infringement.

Picture a woman who receives a plain ceramic mug as a free gift at a conference and, later that afternoon, refuses to sell it for anything less than triple its price in the gift shop downstairs. Before she owned the mug, she would never have paid extra for it; once it became hers, however, its value in her mind rose sharply, simply because she now possessed it. Owners consistently demand more money to give something up than buyers are willing to offer for that very same item, _______________. Some economists argue that this effect explains why negotiations over inherited property so often collapse, since each side quietly attaches a different value to what it currently holds.

When people encounter an individual who appears to memorize enormous quantities of specialized information effortlessly, they often assume that person possesses an innate gift. Cognitive psychologists, however, contend that such feats rarely stem from raw talent alone. Instead, such feats arise from _______________. A landmark study of chess players demonstrated this principle. When shown a board arranged according to plausible game positions, grandmasters reproduced the layout perfectly. Yet when the same pieces were scattered randomly, their performance collapsed to the level of novices. This pattern reveals that expert memory is not larger in raw capacity but is instead organized around patterns accumulated through years of deliberate practice. If chunking, rather than innate aptitude, underlies expert performance, then educators should stop treating talent as fixed and destiny-bound. Curricula ought to be redesigned to cultivate pattern recognition explicitly, since doing so would grant far more students access to expertise once presumed reserved for the naturally gifted.

주어진 문장: Because this competition can occur in either temporal direction, learners cannot avoid it simply by focusing on new material, which is precisely why deliberately spacing out study sessions matters so much. Memory researchers have long recognized that learning is not simply a matter of accumulating information without cost. Newly acquired material can collide with what the mind already holds, producing measurable disruptions in recall. ( ① ) When earlier knowledge interferes with the retrieval of information learned afterward, psychologists call this proactive interference. This phenomenon explains why someone who memorized an old phone number for years may struggle to recall a new one. ( ② ) Conversely, when material learned later undermines the recollection of something acquired earlier, the process is labeled retroactive interference. This second mechanism explains why switching to a new keyboard layout can temporarily impair typing on a familiar one. ( ③ ) Both processes suggest that memories compete for the same limited retrieval pathways rather than resting in isolated compartments. ( ④ ) This insight carries real implications for how students approach studying multiple similar subjects. ( ⑤ ) Instead of cramming closely related material back to back, spacing out review sessions can reduce competition between overlapping traces. Varying study contexts further helps preserve accuracy for both old and new information alike.