영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

문제 1

Individuals rarely evaluate their own lives in isolation; instead, they measure their achievements, possessions, and status against a reference group, a set of people they use as a standard for comparison. This group ①need not be one to which a person actually belongs. A struggling artist may judge success not against neighbors but against celebrated painters in art history, a comparison ②that can inspire ambition or, just as easily, breed persistent dissatisfaction. Sociologists distinguish between normative reference groups, which shape a person's values and behavior, and comparative reference groups, ③which merely provide a benchmark for self-assessment. Robert Merton showed that soldiers who compared their promotion chances to peers within their own slow-moving unit often felt more satisfied than soldiers in units with faster promotion rates, because the latter could see colleagues ④advance while they themselves ⑤lagging behind.

문제 2

Why do people often overvalue objects they have partly ①built themselves, even when the finished product is objectively inferior to something they could have simply purchased? This puzzle, which researchers ②named after a furniture retailer famous for selling items that require home assembly, challenges the standard economic assumption that value is determined solely by an object's inherent qualities. In a series of experiments, participants who ③assembled a plain storage box were willing to pay nearly as much for their own imperfect creation as they were for a professionally built version, despite being fully aware of its flaws. Labor, it seems, functions as a kind of psychological investment: once effort has been ④pour into a task, individuals become reluctant to judge the outcome objectively, because doing so would require admitting that their effort was partly ⑤wasted.

문제 3

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

문제 4

Before a large-scale construction project such as a highway or dam receives government approval, planners in many countries are required to conduct an environmental impact assessment, a formal process designed to ①predict and evaluate the ecological consequences of a proposed development. This process begins with a baseline survey, in which specialists document ②existing conditions, including wildlife, water quality, and air composition, so that future changes can be measured against a reference point. Analysts then model how the project might alter these conditions, drawing on data from ③comparable developments. For instance, a proposed highway that would bisect a forest might be evaluated for its potential to fragment habitats, disrupting migration routes on which certain species depend. If the assessment identifies ④acceptable risks, planners may be required to redesign the project or adopt mitigation measures such as wildlife corridors. Critics contend, however, that assessments are sometimes treated as a bureaucratic formality rather than a ⑤genuine constraint, since developers who commission the studies retain strong influence over how the findings are interpreted.

문제 5

It is often assumed that memory operates independently of bodily context, yet research suggests that this assumption deserves reconsideration. (A) Critics might argue that such effects are minor and inconsistent, yet accumulated evidence across pharmacological and emotional studies is difficult to dismiss. Policymakers designing assessments should therefore weigh not only content difficulty but also the physiological continuity between preparation and examination, since ignoring this dimension risks underestimating certain students' actual knowledge. (B) This finding should prompt educators to reconsider the assumption that a single optimal testing environment exists for every learner, since matching internal states across encoding and retrieval provides retrieval cues that a mismatched state cannot supply. (C) When information is learned under a particular physiological or emotional condition, retrieval tends to improve if that same condition is reinstated at recall, a phenomenon researchers call state-dependent memory. Individuals who study while mildly anxious, for instance, often recall material more accurately when tested under similarly anxious conditions than when tested while calm, even though calmness is typically considered more conducive to concentration.

문제 6

Anyone who has tried to name the ink color of a word like red printed in blue letters knows how surprisingly difficult the task can feel. This everyday struggle, known as the Stroop effect, deserves more attention than casual curiosity grants it, because it reveals something fundamental about how the mind allocates its limited resources. (A) Educators should not dismiss this delay as a trivial curiosity confined to laboratories, since the same competition between habit and intention underlies far more consequential situations, such as a driver's struggle to resist checking a phone despite knowing the danger. Recognizing how automatic responses can hijack conscious intentions is essential for designing environments, from classrooms to highways, that support rather than undermine our efforts at self-control. (B) When these two processes point toward conflicting answers, the automatic pathway tends to intrude upon the controlled one, slowing responses and increasing errors. (C) Reading a familiar word is an automatic process practiced so extensively since childhood that it proceeds almost involuntarily, whereas naming a color requires deliberate, controlled attention.

문제 7

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.

문제 8

For most of the twentieth century, a library was simply a quiet room full of books, and visitors were expected to stay silent while they searched the shelves. (A) Librarians say this change did not happen by accident, since fewer people needed a library simply to find facts as more information moved online. (B) The answer, in many neighborhoods, turned out to be space itself: a warm, free place where students could study together and children could attend a story hour. (C) Today, many public libraries look completely different, offering group study rooms, comfortable sofas, computer labs, and even small recording studios for podcasts alongside the usual shelves.

문제 9

A growing number of teenagers are joining book clubs that exist only on their phones. (A) However, a few teachers worry that constant notifications from a reading app can pull attention away from the book itself, since users may spend more time chatting about the story than actually reading it. Despite this concern, many students report that the sense of community keeps them reading books they would have quit halfway through if they had been reading completely alone. (B) These apps let users track how many pages they read each day, write short reviews, and join group chats about a chosen book. Some students say the apps make reading feel less lonely, because they can share their honest reactions the moment they finish a chapter instead of waiting for a weekly meeting. (C) The apps also use gentle reminders and reading streaks to keep members motivated, turning a private habit into a small social game.

문제 10

Researchers sometimes call this ability perspective-taking, and it does not stay confined to the pages of a book. Psychologists have long wondered whether reading fiction can change how people treat others in real life. ( ① ) Several studies suggest that novels which describe a character's inner thoughts in detail can train readers to imagine what other people are feeling, a skill closely related to empathy. ( ② ) When readers follow a character through difficult choices, they practice stepping into someone else's perspective without any real risk to themselves. ( ③ ) This kind of mental practice, researchers argue, can carry over into everyday situations, making readers more likely to notice a classmate's hidden sadness or understand a stranger's unusual behavior. ( ④ ) Not every book produces this effect equally. Stories that stay focused only on fast action, with little attention to characters' inner lives, appear to build empathy far less than stories that slow down to explore emotion. ( ⑤ ) For this reason, some psychologists now recommend that young readers balance fast-paced adventure novels with quieter stories about ordinary people and their feelings.