영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

A rational approach to decision-making dictates that only future costs and benefits should influence a choice, since resources already spent ①cannot be recovered regardless of what is decided next. In practice, however, people routinely allow such irrecoverable expenditures, known as sunk costs, ②to shape their subsequent decisions, a pattern referred to as the sunk cost fallacy. A moviegoer who finds a film thoroughly disappointing after the first thirty minutes will often remain in the theater until the credits roll, ③reasoning that leaving early would somehow waste the money already spent on the ticket. Organizations exhibit the same fallacy on a larger scale: a company that ④have invested heavily in a failing project frequently continues funding it, arguing that abandoning the project now would render the prior investment meaningless. Yet continuing to invest in a venture destined to fail merely adds new losses to old ones, ⑤compounding the very waste the decision-makers hoped to avoid.

Identical information can provoke strikingly different reactions depending on how it is worded, a phenomenon economists call the framing effect. Patients told that a surgical procedure carries a ninety percent survival rate tend to ①consent to it far more readily than patients told that the same procedure carries a ten percent mortality rate. This discrepancy arises because language does more than transmit facts; it also supplies an ②emotional lens through which those facts are interpreted. Positive framing, which emphasizes what will be ③preserved or gained, tends to encourage risk-averse choices, whereas negative framing, which emphasizes what might be lost, often pushes people toward ④safer alternatives in an attempt to avoid the loss altogether. Marketers, healthcare providers, and policymakers alike ⑤exploit this asymmetry, sometimes to help audiences make sounder decisions and sometimes merely to steer them toward a predetermined conclusion.

People routinely seek out information that confirms what they already believe while ①overlooking or dismissing evidence that contradicts those beliefs, a pattern known as confirmation bias. This tendency operates not because individuals are deliberately dishonest, but because the mind finds it cognitively less ②taxing to absorb information that fits an existing framework than to reconstruct that framework from scratch. Investors who believe a particular company will succeed, for instance, tend to interpret ambiguous news about that company ③unfavorably, while investors who are skeptical of the same company interpret identical news unfavorably, even though both groups are examining the same underlying facts. Social media platforms can ④intensify this effect by algorithmically presenting users with content similar to what they have previously engaged with. Over time, such selective exposure can harden initial impressions into convictions that feel objectively verified, even though they rest on a systematically ⑤filtered sample of evidence.

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

A small bakery once sold a basic loaf for three dollars and a premium loaf for six dollars, and most customers simply bought the cheaper one. The owner then introduced a third option: a slightly larger premium loaf priced at seven dollars, one that was clearly inferior to the six-dollar loaf in terms of value for money. Almost nobody chose the new seven-dollar loaf, yet sales of the six-dollar loaf rose sharply, because _______________. This pattern demonstrates that people rarely judge options in isolation; instead, they evaluate choices relative to whatever alternatives happen to be nearby.

When individuals face uncertainty about how to behave, they frequently look to the actions of others for guidance, assuming that a behavior adopted by many people is more likely to be correct or appropriate than one adopted by few, a tendency known as social proof. Because conformity can substitute for independent judgment so seamlessly, individuals rarely notice when their own decisions have become ___________ rather than genuinely deliberated.

City governments increasingly market dense networks of surveillance cameras as a safety upgrade. Yet the same infrastructure that catches criminals also creates a permanent record of where ordinary citizens go about their daily lives. Once a camera network exists, its purpose can quietly expand, often without new public debate. Civil liberties groups argue that _______________.

Devices that translate brain activity directly into digital commands have moved from laboratory experiments to real medical use, allowing paralyzed patients to control a robotic arm using thought alone. (A) This prospect raises a philosophical question that medicine alone cannot answer: at what point does the assistance stop being a tool and start reshaping the identity of the person using it? (B) As the technology improves, some developers envision a future in which these interfaces extend beyond restoring lost function toward enhancing healthy minds. (C) Neuroethicists argue that mental privacy may need to be recognized as a fundamental right before this technology becomes widespread.

Few of these later buyers, however, possess any independent basis for judging whether the asset's price still bears any relation to its underlying value. A speculative bubble typically begins with a genuine, defensible reason for optimism, such as a promising new technology or an unusually favorable economic environment. ( ① ) Early investors who recognize this genuine opportunity purchase the asset and, as expected, often see its price rise accordingly. ( ② ) As word of these early gains spreads, a second wave of investors enters the market, drawn less by independent analysis than by the simple observation that the price has already climbed. ( ③ ) They are, in effect, purchasing confidence rather than value, trusting that the crowd's continued enthusiasm will sustain or further elevate the price. ( ④ ) This reliance on collective momentum rather than fundamental analysis is precisely what transforms a reasonable initial rally into an unsustainable bubble. ( ⑤ ) When the momentum eventually falters, as it inevitably must, the absence of any solid fundamental foundation leaves the price with nothing to support it.

This finding is particularly striking given that the two groups of employees faced no difference whatsoever in the financial terms of the plan itself. Employers have long experimented with how retirement savings plans are presented to new hires. ( ① ) In one common arrangement, employees receive a form and must actively check a box to begin contributing a portion of their salary to a savings account. ( ② ) Under this opt-in arrangement, a substantial share of eligible employees never get around to enrolling, often citing simple procrastination rather than genuine disinterest in saving. ( ③ ) When employers instead enroll employees automatically and require them to check a box only if they wish to withdraw, participation rates climb to well over ninety percent. ( ④ ) Only the framing of the choice, not its economic substance, appears to determine whether employees end up saving for retirement. ( ⑤ ) This gap between the two arrangements reveals just how powerfully a default setting can shape decisions that people generally regard as carefully considered.