영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Many teachers and parents worry that today's teenagers are losing the ability ①to read long, complex texts. National test scores show a slow decline in reading comprehension over the past ten years, and some experts blame smartphones and short videos for ②shortening students' attention spans. Other researchers disagree with this simple explanation. They point out that teenagers today ③read constantly, just in different forms, such as text messages, captions, and online articles. According to this view, the real problem is not that students read less overall, but that they rarely practice reading long passages without any interruption. A team of researchers recently found that students ④who read at least one full book every month scored noticeably higher on comprehension tests than students who mainly read short online posts. This result suggests that the format of reading, rather than simple screen time, may ⑤being the more important factor behind the changing scores.

Marketers have long recognized that perceived scarcity, the sense that a product or opportunity is available only in limited quantity or for a limited time, can dramatically increase its ①desirability, even when the item's intrinsic qualities remain entirely unchanged. This phenomenon, known as the scarcity effect, operates on a simple psychological principle: when something appears ②easy to obtain, people tend to infer that it must be valuable, since truly worthless items rarely generate genuine competition for possession. A retailer who labels a product as "limited edition" or displays a countdown timer beside a discounted offer exploits this inference, prompting customers to make ③hurried purchase decisions they might otherwise postpone or reconsider. Experimental studies confirm that identical products are rated as more desirable and often command ④higher prices when framed as scarce than when the same products are presented as widely and continuously available. Consumers who later reflect calmly on such purchases frequently discover that the item's actual usefulness fell well short of the ⑤urgency they experienced at the moment of decision.

Every summer, lifeguards repeat the same warnings to swimmers, yet drowning remains one of the most common causes of accidental death among teenagers. Part of the problem is that danger in water rarely looks ①dramatic; a swimmer struggling to stay afloat often makes little noise and shows no obvious signs of panic, which means bystanders may not realize help is needed until it is too late. Rip currents present a particularly ②deceptive threat, since the water's surface can appear calm even while a powerful current pulls a swimmer steadily away from shore. Experts advise that anyone caught in such a current should swim parallel to the beach rather than struggling directly against it, since fighting the current head-on quickly ③strengthens even a strong swimmer. Simple habits, such as swimming near a lifeguard station and never entering the water alone, dramatically ④lower the risk of a minor mistake turning into a fatal ⑤one.

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. I worried that combining so many different skill levels would create an ①ugly, mismatched result, since some volunteers had painted for years while others, including me, had never held a large brush before. The project leader solved this by dividing the huge design into small, connected sections and assigning each volunteer a section matched to their ②comfort level, from simple solid-color backgrounds to detailed flowers. Beginners filled in wide open skies, while experienced painters added fine details like veins on leaves or shadows under birds. When the plastic sheets finally came down, the mural looked remarkably ③unified, not despite the many different hands involved, but because each hand had been given a task ④unrelated to what it could do well, which made the ⑤collaboration feel effortless in the end.

Walking down a crowded street while staring at a phone screen has become such a common sight that it barely draws attention anymore. Researchers describe this as a kind of tunnel vision: a person absorbed in a text message processes only a narrow slice of the surrounding environment. Hospitals have reported a steady rise in injuries linked to distracted walking, ranging from minor scrapes after tripping over a curb to serious collisions with moving vehicles at intersections. What makes this danger especially difficult to address is that _______________.

Audiobooks have grown rapidly in popularity over the past several years. 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. However, 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. The biggest difference tends to appear with dense, technical material. For most everyday reading, however, _______________.

The rise of autonomous vehicles has created both excitement and anxiety within the transportation industry. (A) In particular, long-distance trucking jobs are expected to shrink significantly as autonomous trucks become more common on highways. (B) At the same time, entirely new positions are emerging, such as remote operators who monitor fleets of self-driving vehicles from control centers. (C) On one hand, many professional drivers fear that automation will eliminate the jobs they currently depend on.

Building a reading habit does not usually start with a big decision to read more. (A) It often starts with very small, easy steps, such as keeping a book in a bag or choosing a fixed time each day to read for just ten minutes. (B) These small routines work because they lower the effort needed to begin; once a student opens a book, continuing to read feels much easier than starting did. (C) Over weeks, these tiny actions add up, and reading slowly becomes something the student simply does, rather than something the student has to force.

During exam season last year, our school counselor introduced a weekly drop-in session where students could paint freely for thirty minutes without any instructions or grading. (A) I attended mostly out of curiosity, expecting a relaxing but ultimately pointless activity, since I have never considered myself artistically talented. (B) To my surprise, filling a blank page with color, without worrying whether the result looked good, left me noticeably calmer than scrolling through my phone during the same amount of free time. (C) The counselor explained that art therapy does not aim to produce impressive paintings; it simply gives people a way to express feelings that are difficult to put into words.

This detachment, while sometimes criticized as cold or impersonal, also grants urban residents a distinctive freedom: because so few people know or judge them personally, city dwellers can experiment with identities and lifestyles that would invite intense scrutiny in a smaller, more tightly knit community. German sociologist Georg Simmel argued that the psychological experience of city life differs fundamentally from life in small towns, primarily because urban residents are bombarded with a much greater volume of stimuli than the human nervous system evolved to process. ( ① ) To cope with this constant sensory overload, Simmel proposed, city dwellers develop what he called a blasé attitude. ( ② ) This is a protective indifference in which individuals mentally blunt their emotional reaction to the surrounding crowd, treating most encounters with calculated detachment rather than genuine engagement. ( ③ ) Simmel therefore viewed anonymity as a double-edged feature of modern life. ( ④ ) It isolates individuals from deep communal bonds while simultaneously liberating them from the constant surveillance of small-town social life. ( ⑤ )