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.

For most of the twentieth century, a library was simply a quiet room full of books, and visitors were expected ①to stay silent while they searched the shelves. Today, many public libraries look completely different. Alongside the usual shelves, you might find group study rooms, comfortable sofas for reading, computer labs, and even small recording studios for podcasts. Librarians say this change ②did not happen by accident. As more information moved online, fewer people ③needing a library simply to find facts, so librarians began asking what their communities actually needed instead. The answer, in many neighborhoods, turned out ④to be space itself: a warm, free place where students could study together, job seekers could print a resume, and children could attend a story hour. Librarians respond that reading and gathering have always belonged together, and that a library survives only by ⑤changing with its readers.

Our class field trip to the national art museum began with a worksheet that I initially found ①annoying, since it asked us to stand in front of a single painting for a full five minutes before moving on. Five minutes felt unbearably long for one picture, and I nearly skipped ahead to the next room. Forcing myself to stay, however, I began noticing details that a quick glance would have missed entirely: a faint second figure hidden in the shadows, brushstrokes that grew ②rougher toward the edges of the canvas, a color repeated in three unrelated corners. My initial impression of the painting as simply pleasant slowly became something closer to ③fascination. Our teacher later explained that most museum visitors spend under fifteen seconds per artwork on average, which means they experience galleries as a ④sharp, detailed collection of individual works. That single afternoon taught me that patience, not ⑤expertise, is often the only thing separating a bored visitor from an amazed one.

Why do people often ①overvalue objects they have partly built themselves, even when the finished product is objectively ②inferior to something they could have simply purchased? This puzzle, which researchers named 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 assembled a plain storage box were willing to pay nearly as much for their own ③imperfect 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 poured into a task, individuals become ④reluctant to judge the outcome objectively, because doing so would require admitting that their effort was partly wasted. This tendency helps explain why consumers often prefer products that demand some degree of personal assembly, even when a comparable finished item is available at a ⑤higher price and requires no time investment whatsoever.

Among the many strategies proposed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, one of the oldest draws on an agricultural technique predating modern industry, converting organic material into a ①stable form of charcoal known as biochar. Biochar is produced through pyrolysis, a process in which crop residues or wood chips are heated in an environment with little or no oxygen, preventing the material from burning away as in an open fire. This process leaves behind a carbon-rich solid that ②accelerates decomposition far longer than raw organic matter, locking carbon in a form remaining stable in soil for centuries. When mixed into farmland, biochar also improves soil structure, retaining moisture and nutrients otherwise lost, which can ③boost crop yields in depleted soils. For example, farmers cultivating nutrient-poor tropical soils have reported ④measurable increases in productivity after adding biochar. Nevertheless, researchers caution that the climate benefits of biochar depend on the feedstock and method used, since poorly managed pyrolysis can release as much carbon as it sequesters, ⑤undermining its own purpose.

Many teachers and parents worry that today's teenagers are losing the ability to 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 shortening students' attention spans. Other researchers disagree with this simple explanation. They point out that teenagers today read 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 _______________. A team of researchers recently found that students who read at least one full book every month scored noticeably higher on comprehension tests than students who mainly read short online posts.

Aerobic exercise, such as jogging, swimming, or cycling at a steady pace, produces a wide range of benefits that extend well beyond simple calorie burning. (A) This adaptation explains why trained athletes often have a much lower resting heart rate than sedentary individuals of the same age. (B) Over weeks of consistent training, the heart gradually enlarges and becomes more efficient, delivering the same amount of oxygen to working muscles while beating fewer times per minute. (C) Most fundamentally, it strengthens the heart itself, forcing it to pump larger volumes of blood with each beat.

A shocking headline can spread across social media within minutes, long before anyone checks whether it is actually true. (A) Simple habits can make a real difference, such as looking for the original source of a claim and checking whether other trustworthy outlets are reporting the same story. (B) To handle this flood of information, students today need a skill that previous generations rarely had to practice: checking a source before believing it. (C) Studies show that false stories often travel faster than accurate ones, partly because surprising or emotional claims get shared more quickly than careful, balanced reporting.

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.

The change is small, but it asks students to do something quite different. Many English teachers now ask students to write a short review after finishing a book, rather than simply filling out a reading log. ( ① ) At first, students often complain that summarizing a plot is enough work already, so writing an opinion on top of that feels unnecessary. ( ② ) However, a review requires something a summary does not: a clear judgment supported by specific evidence from the text. ( ③ ) To defend an opinion about a character or a theme, students must return to the book and find exact passages that support their view. ( ④ ) This process forces readers to notice details they might have skipped during a first, quick reading. ( ⑤ ) Teachers who assign reviews regularly report that their students remember plot details more accurately and discuss characters' motivations more confidently than students who only summarize, and writing a review turns out to be a way of reading more carefully in the first place.