영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Biodegradable plastics have been promoted as a promising solution to plastic waste, since they ①are designed to decompose into natural substances rather than persist for centuries. Manufacturers derive these materials from renewable resources such as corn starch, blending them with additives that ②accelerates microbial breakdown once discarded. However, their environmental benefits are often exaggerated, largely because decomposition depends on specific conditions rarely ③found outside industrial composting facilities. 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, ④weakening the quality of materials produced afterward. 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 ⑤providing the precise conditions decomposition demands.

Psychologists studying human judgment often describe the mind as operating through two distinct systems rather than a single unified process. System 1 works ①quickly and automatically, generating impressions and snap judgments without any noticeable sense of effort. System 2, by contrast, is slow, ②deliberate, and demanding, engaged only when a problem requires careful calculation or conscious reasoning. Most daily decisions are handled almost entirely by System 1, which allows people to function ③efficiently without exhausting their limited mental resources. This efficiency comes at a cost, however, because System 1 relies on simple shortcuts that can produce systematic errors, and System 2 is frequently too ④diligent or too occupied to double-check them. As a result, a judgment often feels most confident precisely at the moment when it has skipped the careful scrutiny that could have caught its own mistake, leaving the thinker ⑤unaware of how easily the impression was formed.

In a classic experiment inspired by Keynes's beauty contest analogy, participants choose a number between zero and one hundred, and the winner is whoever selects the number ①farthest from two-thirds of the average of all guesses submitted. A perfectly rational player, assuming every other participant reasons with unlimited depth, would conclude the equilibrium number is zero, since reasoning about others' reasoning ②collapses the average toward that single point. In practice, however, actual guesses rarely ③converge on zero; most participants stop reasoning after a round or two of imagining what others might guess. This gap between theoretical equilibrium and observed behavior reveals that human reasoning is ④bounded. Economists use this game as a ⑤diagnostic tool, since the number a person submits reveals how many levels of strategic thinking that person is willing to perform.

Instead of typing keywords into a search bar, a growing number of people now simply upload a photo and let an algorithm figure out what it contains. Shoppers use it to find where an item seen on the street can be purchased, while students use it to identify plants, insects, or historical artworks in seconds. The system works by breaking an image down into countless small features, such as edges, colors, and shapes, then matching that pattern against millions of stored examples. It is not flawless, however; a blurry photo, an unusual camera angle, or an object partly hidden behind another can easily confuse the algorithm, leading to _______________.

Cognitive psychologists distinguish between two modes by which the mind handles information, a distinction that helps explain why experienced drivers can hold conversations while navigating familiar roads without conscious effort. Automatic processing occurs rapidly, requires minimal attention, and typically operates outside conscious awareness, allowing multiple automatic tasks to proceed without interfering with one another. Controlled processing, by contrast, unfolds more slowly, demands deliberate attention, and _______________. Skills that once required intense concentration, such as reading or typing, gradually become automatic through extensive practice, freeing attentional resources for other purposes. This shift explains why novice drivers find it difficult to talk while merging onto a highway, whereas seasoned drivers manage the same maneuver with comparative ease. However, automaticity carries hidden costs, since automatized responses can be triggered inappropriately by habitual cues even when circumstances have changed, occasionally producing errors that controlled deliberation would have prevented.

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.

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.

As cities have expanded across landscapes once covered with absorbent soil, impervious surfaces have turned stormwater from a resource that recharges groundwater into a hazard that floods streets and carries pollutants into waterways. (A) For example, cities that replaced pavement with permeable alternatives have reported notable reductions in flooding during storms that once overwhelmed sewers. However, engineers caution that green infrastructure cannot entirely replace conventional pipes in dense cores, where heavy runoff still requires structural reinforcement. Consequently, municipalities now regard green and gray infrastructure as complementary systems, each compensating for the other's limitations. (B) Green infrastructure, which mimics the hydrological functions that natural landscapes once performed, offers planners a way to treat the city as a sponge rather than a rigid drainage pipe. (C) Rain gardens, shallow depressions planted with deep-rooted vegetation, are designed to capture runoff from rooftops, allowing it to filter slowly through soil before reaching underground aquifers. Permeable pavement, made of porous materials that let water pass directly through, serves a similar purpose along sidewalks, where asphalt would remain impenetrable.

When people face a difficult decision, they often weigh not only the expected outcome of each option but also how painful it would feel to discover later that a different choice had been better. (A) Researchers have found that people feel sharper regret over losses that resulted from taking action than over identical losses that resulted from doing nothing. (B) Investors, for example, sometimes continue holding a declining stock rather than selling it, because selling would force them to confront the possibility of having made a clear mistake. (C) This helps explain why so many individuals default to inaction whenever a decision feels uncertain, even when remaining passive is not actually the safer choice.

After all, the sentences are short and the pictures seem to do most of the storytelling. Picture books are usually written for young children, but a growing number of adults are picking them up for themselves. ( ① ) At first glance, a picture book seems too simple for someone who has already learned to read long novels. ( ② ) However, many picture books deal with serious themes, such as loss, fear, and change, using only a few carefully chosen words. ( ③ ) Because the text is short, every sentence carries extra weight, and readers naturally slow down to notice small details in the pictures. ( ④ ) This slower pace can feel calming for adults who are used to rushing through long articles and constant notifications. ( ⑤ ) A picture book can also be finished in a single sitting, which makes it easy to return to the same story again and again, and for these reasons, therapists and teachers sometimes recommend picture books not only to children but also to stressed adults who need a quiet moment.