영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Many teachers and parents worry that today's teenagers are losing the ability ① to read long, complex texts. National test scores show a slow decline in reading comprehension over the past ten years, and some experts blame smartphones and short videos for ② shortening students' attention spans. Other researchers disagree with this simple explanation. They point out that teenagers today ③ read constantly, just in different forms, such as text messages, captions, and online articles. According to this view, the real problem is not that students read less overall, but that they rarely practice reading long passages without any interruption. A team of researchers recently found that students ④ who read at least one full book every month scored noticeably higher on comprehension tests than students who mainly read short online posts. This result suggests that the format of reading, rather than simple screen time, may ⑤ being the more important factor behind the changing scores.

Among the many strategies proposed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, one of the oldest draws on an agricultural technique predating modern industry, converting organic material into a ①stable form of charcoal known as biochar. Biochar is produced through pyrolysis, a process in which crop residues or wood chips are heated in an environment with little or no oxygen, preventing the material from burning away as in an open fire. This process leaves behind a carbon-rich solid that ②accelerates decomposition far longer than raw organic matter, locking carbon in a form remaining stable in soil for centuries. When mixed into farmland, biochar also improves soil structure, retaining moisture and nutrients otherwise lost, which can ③boost crop yields in depleted soils. For example, farmers cultivating nutrient-poor tropical soils have reported ④measurable increases in productivity after adding biochar. Nevertheless, researchers caution that the climate benefits of biochar depend on the feedstock and method used, since poorly managed pyrolysis can release as much carbon as it sequesters, ⑤undermining its own purpose.

Modern consumer culture often assumes that expanding the range of available options will automatically make people ① freer and happier, yet a growing body of research suggests the opposite may sometimes be true. When individuals select from an enormous set of alternatives, satisfaction with the final choice frequently ② increases rather than declines, even when the chosen item is objectively excellent. This decline stems not from the difficulty of deciding but from what happens afterward, once a decision has already been made. Having considered so many possibilities, a person naturally imagines the specific advantages that a different, unchosen option might have offered, and this imagined comparison ③ quietly erodes contentment with what was actually selected. By contrast, someone who chose from only two or three alternatives rarely constructs such an ④ elaborate fantasy of missed advantages. The paradox, therefore, is that abundance can free people from external constraint while simultaneously ⑤ trapping them in a private cycle of comparison and regret.

When people look back on a multi-day journey, they rarely recall every hour with equal clarity; instead, memory tends to compress the entire experience into just a few representative moments. Psychologists have found that two points carry disproportionate weight in this process: the single moment when emotion reached its highest intensity, and whatever happened right before the experience concluded. Consider two hikers who complete an identical five-day trek. The first finishes with a grueling, rain-soaked final climb, while the second enjoys a calm, scenic descent on the last afternoon despite having endured an equally difficult ascent earlier in the trip. Even though both hikers faced comparable hardship overall, the second is far more likely to remember the journey fondly, simply because the trip ended pleasantly. This pattern reveals that _______________.

Browsing an online store today often means chatting with an AI assistant that asks a few quick questions before suggesting a short list of products tailored to the answers. Retailers report that shoppers who use these chatbots tend to complete purchases more often and return fewer items, since the guided conversation helps buyers choose products that actually fit their needs. Some shoppers, however, remain wary of how personal the questions can feel, wondering _______________. Consumer advocates argue that stores should clearly explain what happens to this data, rather than burying the explanation in a lengthy privacy policy that almost no one reads.

Few ideas in policy debate provoke as much philosophical unease as the notion that a government might deliberately steer citizens toward better choices while leaving every option technically available. (A) Defenders insist that freedom is preserved as long as no option is banned and no penalty is attached, arguing that a citizen who is merely steered, rather than coerced, remains free to choose otherwise. (B) Critics counter that this defense rests on an impoverished notion of liberty, one that ignores how engineered defaults and calculated framing can shape decisions just as powerfully as an outright prohibition would. (C) The dispute ultimately turns on what freedom actually requires: the mere absence of coercion, or a decision-making process that remains transparent and undistorted.

During exam season last year, our school counselor introduced a weekly drop-in session where students could paint freely for thirty minutes without any instructions or grading. (A) I attended mostly out of curiosity, expecting a relaxing but ultimately pointless activity, since I have never considered myself artistically talented. (B) To my surprise, filling a blank page with color, without worrying whether the result looked good, left me noticeably calmer than scrolling through my phone during the same amount of free time. (C) The counselor explained that art therapy does not aim to produce impressive paintings; it simply gives people a way to express feelings that are difficult to put into words.

Last summer, our neighborhood association invited students to help paint a mural on the long wall beside the community center, and nearly forty volunteers with completely different painting abilities showed up on the first day. (A) When the plastic sheets finally came down, the mural looked remarkably unified, not despite the many different hands involved, but because each hand had been given a task suited to what it could do well. (B) The project leader solved this by dividing the huge design into small, connected sections and assigning each volunteer a section matched to their comfort level, from simple solid-color backgrounds to detailed flowers. (C) I worried that combining so many different skill levels would create an ugly, mismatched result, since some volunteers had painted for years while others, including me, had never held a large brush before.

In fact, choosing the right books for the right students takes far more thought than most people realize. Many students imagine a librarian simply sitting behind a desk and stamping books. ( ① ) Ms. Han, who has worked at a school library for over ten years, says that image is far from accurate. ( ② ) A large part of her job involves choosing which new books to buy, based on both student requests and current trends in youth literature. ( ③ ) She also spends hours training students to search databases and judge whether an online source is trustworthy, a skill she considers just as important as reading itself. ( ④ ) According to Ms. Han, the most rewarding moment is not organizing shelves but watching a student who once avoided reading finally ask for a second book in the same series. ( ⑤ ) She admits that budgets are often tight and that new technology keeps changing how libraries operate. Still, she insists that the core purpose of her job has never changed: connecting each reader with the right book at the right time.

Not everyone in the neighborhood, however, shared that reaction. Walking through the old industrial district downtown, I noticed that a gray concrete wall had been transformed overnight into a wild swirl of color, letters, and cartoon figures. ( ① ) Some residents complained to the city office, calling it vandalism and demanding that workers paint over it immediately. ( ② ) Others argued that the same wall had been an ugly, forgotten eyesore for years, and that the graffiti artist had simply given it a voice no one else bothered to give it. ( ③ ) This disagreement reveals a tension at the heart of street art: without permission, even a skillful and thoughtful piece can be labeled a crime, yet many cities now invite graffiti artists to paint designated walls legally, hoping to channel that same creative energy into something the whole neighborhood can enjoy. ( ④ ) The line between vandalism and art, it seems, often depends less on the paint itself than on who gave permission to use the wall. ( ⑤ )