영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Emissions trading, a market-based mechanism for ①curbing greenhouse gases, allows governments to set an overall limit on carbon output while letting firms trade permits within that limit. Under this system, ②known as cap-and-trade, companies that cut emissions more cheaply than required can sell surplus allowances to firms facing higher reduction costs. Proponents argue that this flexibility lets society reach a given environmental target at the lowest overall cost, since abatement shifts toward whoever can ③achieve it most economically. Critics, however, ④contends that trading schemes frequently allocate too many permits, a flaw that has historically depressed carbon prices and blunted incentives to invest in cleaner technology. For example, early phases of several regional markets granted allowances so generously that permit prices collapsed, ⑤leaving polluters with little pressure to change their practices.

As solar and wind power expand rapidly across national grids, engineers face a challenge that ①receive far less public attention than the construction of the generating facilities themselves. Unlike conventional power plants, which can adjust their output to match demand at almost any moment, solar panels and wind turbines generate electricity only when sunlight or wind is available, ②producing supply that fluctuates constantly. One proposed solution involves large-scale battery storage systems, ③which absorb surplus electricity generated during periods of high output and release it later when generation declines. Grid operators must therefore invest in infrastructure capable of ④accommodating this variability, rather than assuming renewable sources can simply replace fossil fuels without adjustment. Without such investment, integrating renewable energy could paradoxically undermine the very reliability that modern electricity grids are ⑤expected to provide.

Have you ever felt a ①boring class lasted forever while an exciting weekend disappeared in an instant? This common experience reflects what psychologists call the distortion of time perception: subjective time can differ from actual clock time. Researchers explain that people who focus intensely on an enjoyable activity process fewer separate moments, so time seems to pass ②slowly. In contrast, bored or anxious people pay ③closer attention to each moment, making time feel as though it is dragging. When people become deeply ④engaged in a task, they often lose track of time, unaware of how many minutes have passed. For example, athletes and musicians often say that hours felt like minutes while they were fully ⑤absorbed in performance.

Economists have long debated whether prosperity and environmental quality are fundamentally ①opposed, or whether the relationship between them changes shape as an economy matures. The Environmental Kuznets Curve, a hypothesis borrowed from earlier theories of income inequality, proposes that pollution initially ②rises alongside economic growth before eventually declining once a society crosses a certain threshold of wealth. In its early stages, industrializing nations ③prioritize output over conservation, treating clean air and water as expendable costs of development to be addressed later. Beyond a certain point, however, rising incomes generate both the technological capacity and the political will to demand ④more lenient regulation, so degradation begins to reverse even as production keeps expanding. Some scholars regard this trajectory as a ⑤reassuring paradox, suggesting that the very growth blamed for ecological harm may eventually finance its own repair. Critics, by contrast, argue that the curve rests on a narrow selection of pollutants that happen to decline with wealth, while ignoring greenhouse gases and resource depletion, which show no comparable tendency to fall.

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.

When engineers design the software that controls a self-driving car, they inevitably face a question that philosophers have debated for decades: who should the vehicle protect in an unavoidable crash? (A) This gap between the ideal and the personal choice suggests that ethical programming cannot be settled by public opinion alone. (B) Surveys reveal an uncomfortable contradiction: most people say a car should minimize total harm, yet the same people admit they would never buy a vehicle designed to sacrifice its own owner. (C) Manufacturers, regulators, and philosophers must instead agree on transparent rules before autonomous vehicles are allowed to make such decisions on the road.

Scientists have long searched for a way to describe, in a single coherent framework, the outer limits within which human activity can safely continue without destabilizing the planet's fundamental systems. (A) The concept of planetary boundaries, introduced by earth-system researchers, identifies nine interconnected processes, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and nitrogen pollution, each possessing a threshold beyond which abrupt and irreversible change becomes likely. (B) Some philosophers have likened this framework to a ship's safe operating margin, within which passengers may move freely without risking the vessel's stability. Critics, however, contend that the boundaries are drawn with more confidence than the data can support. (C) Unlike conventional environmental limits, often defined locally, these boundaries are framed at a planetary scale, reflecting the idea that the Earth functions as a single interdependent system rather than a collection of isolated regions. Crossing one boundary, proponents argue, does not merely damage the system involved but can also destabilize others, since climate, oceans, and land are bound together by feedback loops that transmit disturbance across the system.

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. (A) 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. (B) 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. (C) Manufacturers derive these materials from renewable resources such as corn starch, blending them with additives that accelerate microbial breakdown once discarded. However, their environmental benefits are often exaggerated, largely because decomposition depends on specific conditions rarely found outside industrial composting facilities.

주어진 문장: These habits include the way we use light, water, and electronic devices every day. Every day, we leave behind marks of the gases that warm our planet, much like footprints left in wet sand. ① These marks, often called our carbon footprint, come from small choices such as driving, eating, and using electricity. ② Many students think that only large factories create these marks, but ordinary habits at home also matter greatly. ③ For example, turning off lights when leaving a room reduces the energy that power plants must produce. ④ Walking or biking to school instead of riding in a car also lowers the amount of gas released into the air. In contrast, leaving devices plugged in all night quietly increases our footprint without our notice. ⑤ Therefore, students who practice these simple habits regularly can shrink their footprint significantly. Small daily choices, repeated over time, become powerful tools for protecting the environment we all share.

주어진 문장: No individual, he pointed out, could realistically process every piece of available information before choosing. Classical economic theory long assumed that decision makers gather all relevant information, calculate every possible outcome, and select the single option that maximizes their benefit. ( ① ) Herbert Simon, however, questioned this assumption, arguing that human beings operate under real constraints of time, knowledge, and mental capacity that make such exhaustive calculation practically impossible. ( ② ) Instead of searching endlessly for the theoretically perfect choice, people typically stop once they find an option that seems good enough to meet their immediate needs, a strategy Simon termed satisficing. ( ③ ) A shopper comparing refrigerators, for example, rarely examines every model available; she instead sets a few practical criteria, such as price and size, and selects the first appliance that satisfies them adequately. ( ④ ) This approach is not a failure of reasoning but rather a sensible adaptation to a world where information is costly and time is genuinely limited. ( ⑤ ) Consequently, models assuming unlimited rationality often fail to predict actual behavior, while frameworks acknowledging these cognitive boundaries offer a far more realistic account of how ordinary decisions are actually made.