영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Economists have long debated whether prosperity and environmental quality are fundamentally opposed, or whether the relationship between them ①changes shape as an economy matures. The Environmental Kuznets Curve, a hypothesis ②borrowed from earlier theories of income inequality, proposes that pollution initially rises alongside economic growth before eventually declining once a society crosses a certain threshold of wealth. In its early stages, industrializing nations prioritize output over conservation, ③treats 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 ④to demand stricter regulation, so degradation begins to reverse even as production keeps expanding. Some scholars regard this trajectory as a reassuring paradox, suggesting that the very growth ⑤blamed 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.

Many households save far less for retirement than conventional financial advice would recommend, not necessarily because they lack the resources to do so, but because a combination of procrastination, present bias, and the discomfort of forgoing current consumption repeatedly ①delays the decision to begin saving. Recognizing this gap between intention and action, some economists have proposed a savings program in which employees commit today to allocating a portion of their future salary increases toward retirement savings, rather than being asked to ②increase their current take-home pay immediately. Because the sacrifice applies only to income not yet received, the commitment feels far less ③painful than an equivalent reduction in present earnings would, making employees considerably more willing to enroll. Once enrolled, the contribution rate automatically rises with each subsequent raise, gradually ④increasing savings without requiring any further deliberate action from participants. Field trials of such programs have reported substantial increases in average savings rates over several years, alongside participant satisfaction that remains notably ⑤high.

Long before cognitive scientists possessed the tools to observe the brain directly, Donald Broadbent proposed an influential model suggesting that the human capacity to process incoming sensory information is ①constrained by a structural bottleneck through which only a single stream of input can pass at any given instant. According to this filter theory, multiple channels of stimulation, such as competing voices in a crowded room, are initially registered at a ②deep, physical level, but only one channel is selected for further, meaning-based analysis while the rest are blocked from advancing beyond that early filter. Although later researchers challenged the ③rigidity of this early selection mechanism, pointing to instances in which unattended information, such as one's own name, nevertheless breaks through and captures awareness, the core insight that attention imposes a genuine processing limit rather than a mere matter of willpower has remained remarkably ④durable. This basic bottleneck principle continues to inform contemporary explanations of why multitasking so reliably ⑤degrades performance on demanding tasks.

Many schools give students a list of recommended books at the start of each year. Choosing these books is not as simple as picking ①well-known titles. Teachers must think about a wide range of student interests, not just their own favorites. A good list should also include stories from ②different cultures and different kinds of characters, so that every student can find someone to relate to. Reading level matters too; a book that is too difficult can make a student ③give up on reading altogether, while a book that is too easy may feel boring. Teachers often ask students for feedback after they finish a book, and they slowly update the list based on what students actually ④ignored. In the end, the best recommended list is not fixed forever; it keeps changing to match the readers it is meant to ⑤serve.

Émile Durkheim insisted that sociology could become a genuine science only if it identified a distinct subject matter that could not be reduced to individual psychology. He termed this subject matter social facts, defined as ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that exist outside any single individual yet exert a coercive influence over that individual's behavior. Language, currency, legal codes, and religious ritual all qualify as social facts, since a person is born into these systems already fully formed and must conform to them regardless of personal preference. Durkheim insisted that social facts should be studied as things, meaning they must be examined empirically through observable patterns such as statistics, rather than _______________.

Accidents rarely wait for a doctor to be nearby, which is why basic first aid knowledge can make a critical difference in the first few minutes after an injury occurs. Many students assume that only professionals should touch an injured person, fearing that any mistake might make things worse. In reality, a few simple actions, such as applying steady pressure to a bleeding wound or keeping an unconscious person's airway clear, can prevent a minor injury from becoming a life-threatening one. _______________, since every minute without basic care allows a treatable injury to worsen. Of course, first aid is never a substitute for professional medical treatment, and it should never replace an emergency call.

When people recall precisely where they were and what they were doing at the moment they learned of some momentous public event, the resulting memory often feels extraordinarily vivid, as though it had been etched into the mind with photographic precision; researchers have termed such recollections flashbulb memories. Proponents of this concept once argued that the emotional intensity and surprise accompanying such events trigger a distinct neural mechanism that preserves details with unusual fidelity, effectively exempting them from the gradual decay that afflicts ordinary memories. Subsequent longitudinal studies, however, have complicated this picture considerably: when researchers compared accounts gathered within days of an event to accounts gathered years later, they discovered that details had frequently been altered, omitted, or even fabricated, even though the individuals reporting them expressed unwavering confidence in their accuracy. This persistent mismatch between subjective certainty and objective consistency implies that _______________.

For many years, comic books and graphic novels were seen as a lazy alternative to real reading. (A) Recent research, however, tells a more complicated story, since graphic novels actually require readers to combine written text with visual clues. (B) Parents and teachers often worried that pictures did the work that words should do, leaving young readers with weaker vocabulary and imagination. (C) Rather than replacing traditional reading, graphic novels appear to work best as a bridge that leads students toward it.

On the first day of our improv theater workshop, the instructor gave us a rule that seemed impossible to follow: never say no to whatever another performer suggests. (A) If a scene partner claimed the empty classroom was actually a submarine, our job was to accept that fact instantly and build on it, rather than correcting or rejecting the idea. (B) I found this terrifying at first, since improv offers no script to hide behind and no time to plan a clever line in advance. (C) Over several weeks, though, I noticed that the students who worried most about saying something wrong were usually the ones who froze on stage, while those who simply accepted whatever happened created the funniest scenes.

Not everyone welcomes this shift, though. Audiobooks have grown rapidly in popularity over the past several years, and many commuters now listen to novels instead of reading printed pages. ( ① ) Publishers report that audiobook sales continue to rise every year, while the growth of printed book sales has slowed. ( ② ) Part of the appeal is convenience, since listeners can enjoy a story while driving, exercising, or doing housework. ( ③ ) Some traditional readers argue that listening to a book is not the same as truly reading it, because the listener does not process written words directly. ( ④ ) Researchers who study this question have found that comprehension scores for listeners and readers are usually very similar, as long as the material is not too complex. ( ⑤ ) The biggest difference tends to appear with dense, technical material, which is often easier to follow in print, but for most everyday reading, the debate over audiobooks may matter less than simply finding a format that keeps people engaged with stories.