영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Carbon neutrality refers to a state in which the amount of greenhouse gases a country or company releases into the atmosphere ①is balanced by the amount it removes, resulting in zero net emissions. Achieving this goal typically requires several sequential stages rather than a single sudden action. First, organizations attempt to reduce emissions directly ②by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources such as solar or wind power. Next, they improve efficiency throughout their operations, ③minimizing the energy wasted during production and transportation. Only after these direct measures have been maximized do most organizations turn to offsetting, ④which involve funding projects like reforestation or carbon capture to compensate for emissions that cannot yet be eliminated. Critics argue, however, that some companies exploit offsetting too early, ⑤using it to avoid making genuine reductions. Therefore, experts insist that a credible roadmap must always prioritize actual emission cuts before relying on compensation.

Yesterday, I visited my school's career counselor because I felt ①excited about my future. I told her that I enjoyed both science and art, but I could not decide which subject to pursue. She listened ②carefully and then asked me a simple question: what activities make me lose track of time? I answered that designing posters for school events always felt ③exciting. She smiled and said that this kind of clue often ④reveals a genuine interest, more than any test score can. Our short conversation gave me a ⑤clearer sense of direction than weeks of worrying alone had.

Psychologist Roy Baumeister proposed a concept called ego depletion theory, which suggests that ___________. According to this theory, every act of self-control, from resisting a snack to concentrating on difficult homework, draws from the same limited mental resource. As this resource becomes depleted throughout the day, later decisions require more effort and are more likely to fail. For instance, someone who exercises discipline avoiding distractions all morning may struggle to resist checking a phone by evening. Likewise, dieters report that self-control weakens sharply at night, after hours of resisting food. Some researchers argue that short breaks, adequate sleep, and blood sugar levels can help restore this depleted resource. Although later studies have questioned how strong this effect is, the theory still offers a useful framework for understanding why willpower seems to fade throughout a long day.

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 known as loss aversion. Consider an investor who refuses to sell a declining stock, clinging to the hope that its price will eventually recover, even when all available evidence indicates that selling and reinvesting elsewhere would be more rational. As a result, loss aversion frequently pushes individuals toward ___________ rather than toward the outcome that would maximize their overall welfare.

The planning fallacy describes the tendency to underestimate how long a task will take, even when experience suggests otherwise. Psychologists who studied this bias found that ___________. They focus less on how similar projects actually unfolded before. A student who insists an essay takes two hours, despite needing five hours for every previous essay, shows a clear instance of the fallacy. Large construction projects offer another example. Officials frequently predict completion dates that later prove far too optimistic once delays appear. One reason this bias persists is that people rarely review their history of missed deadlines, relying instead on hopeful imagination. Some researchers recommend a technique called reference class forecasting, comparing a new task to similar completed tasks. By anchoring predictions to real outcomes, planners can produce estimates that are considerably more accurate.

Blockchain technology was originally promoted as a way to remove the need for trusted middlemen. In theory, this design distributes power away from any single institution and toward the network as a whole. In practice, however, _______________, controlling enough computing power or currency to influence outcomes that were supposed to be decided collectively. Whether decentralization can survive this concentration of power remains one of the technology's most unresolved questions.

Minji had tried for years to build a bedtime reading habit but always forgot once under the blanket. During summer, she found a method called habit stacking. It means attaching a new habit to an existing one so it acts as a reminder. Her existing habit was brushing her teeth every night, so she decided to place her book beside her toothbrush. After brushing her teeth, she would pick up the book, letting one action trigger the next. Within two weeks, opening the book after brushing felt almost automatic, requiring no conscious effort. Encouraged by this success, Minji stacked another habit onto her morning routine, reviewing vocabulary words after making her bed. She realized ___________. By the end of summer, both habits felt like steady parts of her routine, requiring no reminders.

Emotions can spread from one person to another without a single word being spoken face to face. (A) For example, a cheerful comment posted early in a thread often encourages later commenters to write in a similarly positive tone. (B) Recently, however, psychologists have found that this same spreading effect happens even online, through text and images alone. (C) This means that a single post can shape the emotional tone of an entire online conversation.

If the theory is applied consistently to the entire sealed box, the cat itself would have to be considered simultaneously alive and dead. Physicist Erwin Schrödinger devised a now-famous thought experiment not to describe an actual laboratory procedure, but to expose an absurdity hidden within a leading interpretation of quantum mechanics. ( ① ) Imagine a cat sealed inside a closed box together with a radioactive atom, a Geiger counter, and a vial of poison gas rigged to break open the instant the atom decays. ( ② ) Because the atom's decay is governed by genuine quantum randomness, standard quantum theory describes the atom, before anyone looks, as existing in a superposition of having decayed and not having decayed at the same time. ( ③ ) Until an observer opens the lid and looks inside, no measurement has yet forced the system into one definite outcome or the other. ( ④ ) Schrödinger intended this image to sound obviously ridiculous. ( ⑤ ) He used the cat's absurd fate to question whether observation truly determines physical reality, or whether the mathematics is simply being pushed too far.

주어진 문장: Without such structure, even highly motivated students may unconsciously postpone tasks that feel too far removed from the present moment. Behavioral economists use the term temporal discounting to describe how people undervalue future rewards simply because those rewards are not immediate. ( ① ) This tendency explains why a student might choose to watch videos tonight rather than study for an exam that remains several weeks away, even though studying offers a greater long-term benefit. ( ② ) A distant reward, no matter how valuable, feels psychologically smaller than a small reward available right now. This bias contributes to procrastination, since future consequences rarely feel urgent enough to motivate immediate action. ( ③ ) To counter this tendency, students should convert distant goals into smaller, near-term milestones that feel more emotionally real. ( ④ ) Setting weekly checkpoints rather than a final deadline can make future benefits feel closer and more concrete. Teachers and parents should provide immediate, meaningful feedback, since prompt recognition helps bridge the gap between present effort and delayed reward, ultimately reducing the urge to postpone tasks. ( ⑤ )