영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Consider a student who genuinely intends to study for tomorrow's exam yet, when the evening actually arrives, chooses to ①watch another episode of a favorite show instead, ②promising 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, ③appear 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, whatever happens right now simply feels disproportionately more urgent and vivid than anything scheduled for later. Behavioral economists note that this preference weakens considerably once both options are ④pushed into the future, which is why planning a diet starting next month feels effortless compared with skipping dessert tonight. Such inconsistency helps explain why gym memberships go ⑤unused and retirement accounts remain underfunded, despite people's stated intentions.

Earthquakes strike without any warning, which is exactly why the seconds immediately after the shaking begins matter more than any other moment in an ①emergency. Many people instinctively want to run outside during a quake, imagining that open space is always ②more dangerous than a building, but this instinct can be dangerous, since falling glass, signs, and debris often cause more injuries near exits and windows than sturdy interior spaces do. Furniture that seems merely inconvenient during a fire drill, such as a heavy desk, becomes a ③lifesaving shield when the ceiling above begins to crack. After the shaking stops, experts warn that the greatest remaining danger is often a damaged structure rather than a second earthquake, so ④calmly checking for hazards before moving is just as important as reacting ⑤quickly at the first tremor.

Desalination, the process of removing dissolved salts from seawater to produce fresh water, has increasingly been adopted by coastal regions facing chronic water scarcity. Most modern facilities rely on reverse osmosis, a technique in which seawater is forced through membranes whose microscopic pores block salt while letting water molecules pass. Because this method consumes far less energy than the thermal distillation once dominant in the industry, it has become the preferred choice for large-scale plants. Nevertheless, _______________. For instance, the process generates a concentrated byproduct called brine, which, when discharged without adequate dilution, can raise local salinity to levels that harm marine life. Pumping seawater through membranes at high pressure also demands substantial electricity, so plants powered by fossil fuels can worsen the emissions that intensify drought. Therefore, engineers increasingly argue that desalination should be treated not as a stand-alone remedy but as one component of a broader conservation strategy.

Science labs feel far safer than they actually are, largely because the equipment looks harmless and the experiments are carefully planned by a teacher. This false sense of security leads some students to skip small precautions, such as wearing safety goggles for a "simple" experiment. Chemical reactions, however, do not distinguish between a professional laboratory and a classroom; _______________. Teachers repeatedly emphasize reading each instruction before touching any material, since even a familiar-looking chemical can behave unpredictably when combined with something new.

Every July, our school library launches a summer reading challenge that invites students to read at least five books before classes begin again in September. Students who complete the challenge receive a small prize, but many say the real reward is something else entirely. Without daily homework and tests to worry about, summer gives students rare freedom to choose books purely because they sound interesting, not because a teacher assigned them. Librarians believe that _______________, since students who only cared about winning the prize tend to quit once the reading feels difficult, while curious readers keep going.

Philosophers sometimes ask their students to imagine a creature physically identical to an ordinary human being in every measurable respect, one that walks, talks, laughs, and even cries out in apparent pain when injured, yet that has no inner conscious experience whatsoever. (A) Critics respond that mere conceivability proves very little about what is genuinely possible in the real world. (B) This imagined being, commonly called a philosophical zombie, behaves exactly as a conscious person would, since every neuron fires in precisely the same pattern. (C) Defenders of the argument claim that because such a zombie is at least conceivable without any logical contradiction, consciousness itself cannot be fully explained by physical processes alone.

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. (A) 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. (B) 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. (C) 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. 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. 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.

Every spring, our school holds an art exhibition in the main hallway, and this year I finally submitted a painting of my own. (A) On the morning the paintings went up, I walked past dozens of styles, from careful realistic portraits to messy, colorful abstractions, and none of them looked like mine. Instead of feeling embarrassed, I found myself curious about why each artist had made certain choices. (B) Standing in that crowded hallway, I finally understood that the exhibition's real purpose was not to rank the paintings, but to let students discover how many different perspectives could exist in a single shared space. (C) For weeks, I compared my work to my classmates' drawings and felt sure that mine was not good enough to hang beside theirs. My art teacher noticed my hesitation and said something I did not expect: an exhibition is not a contest to find the single best picture, but a chance to show how differently people see the same world.

For many students, the walk to school feels so routine that safety becomes an afterthought, yet a surprising number of accidents occur within a few blocks of the school gate. (A) Wearing dark clothing during these hours can make a student almost invisible until a car is dangerously close. (B) This shortcut becomes especially risky during the darker months, when a driver's ability to spot a pedestrian drops sharply well before sunrise or after sunset. (C) Part of the danger comes from convenience: students often cut across a busy street rather than walking the extra minute to the nearest crosswalk, assuming they can judge the traffic gap correctly.

Around elementary schools, bright yellow signs mark what is known as a school zone, an area where drivers are required to slow down to reduce the risk of striking a child who might dart into the street without warning. (A) A car traveling even ten kilometers per hour slower gives a driver several extra seconds to brake, often the exact difference between a frightening near miss and a tragedy. (B) Some drivers complain that the reduced speed limit wastes their time, especially when no children happen to be visible at that moment. (C) This complaint misses an important fact about how children behave near traffic: young students often lack the judgment to predict how far a car will travel before it can stop.