대원1 5주차 진단고사

Decision fatigue, meaning ①exhaustion felt after comparing, considering and choosing, is ②safe. As a consumer, you become more likely to be affected by advertising messages and impulse buys. As a decision maker, you are subject to various ③allurements. Willpower is like a battery. After a while it runs out and needs to be ④revitalized. You do this by relaxing and eating something. Willpower ⑤plummets to zero if your blood sugar falls too low. IKEA, a Swedish furniture company, knows this well. On the journey through the maze-like display areas in its stores, decision fatigue appears. For this reason, its restaurants are located right in the middle of the stores. The company is willing to sacrifice some of its profit margin so that you can top up your blood sugar on dishes before resuming your hunt for whatever you were looking for.

Petroleum, or oil, forms from the remains of plants and animals that lived in the ocean between 10 and 160 million years ago. When organisms die and sink to the ocean bottom, they mix with mud, sand, and other mineral deposits. Over time, hundreds of feet of mud containing the organisms ①pile up. Bacteria in the accumulation remove most of the oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur, leaving mainly hydrogen and carbon. The ②abundance of oxygen keeps the organisms from ③rotting completely. The partially ④rotted organisms create a slimy mass, which is then covered with layers of sediments. Over millions of years, as more layers are deposited on top of one another, ⑤force and heat acting on the source rock compress the organic material into crude oil.

People are perceived as more credible when they make eye contact and speak with confidence, no matter what they have to say. In a mock jury study, researcher Bonnie Erickson and her colleagues had people listen to a witness answer questions about a supposed accident —for example, “Approximately how long did you stay there before the ambulance arrived?” Some jurors heard the witness respond straightforwardly: “Twenty minutes. Long enough to help get Mrs. David straightened out.” Others listened to the witness hesitate: “Oh, it seems like it was about, uh, twenty minutes. Just long enough to help my friend Mrs. David, you know, get straightened out.” What the witnesses said turned out to be less important than how they said it: the straightforward, confident witnesses were rated significantly more credible and competent.

Some people buy stock by intuition. Most others use information about the stock’s past to predict future risk. It could be the history of a stock’s performance, the ratio of stock price to past company earnings, or stock volatility, the extent of a stock’s past price fluctuations. These and many other risk indicators evaluate future risks based on the past. All fail frequently, as reflected in the stockbroker’s mantra that past performance does not guarantee future results. In addition, their failure is not limited to major stock market crashes. Take the case of actively managed stock funds, in which a professional manager is paid to assess the risk of holding a particular company’s stock. The majority of these funds yield returns worse than the stock market average, although humans with expert knowledge manage them. The average decision based on past stock performance is no better than a random number pulled from a hat.

The Mississippi River, which acts as the potable water source for 31 American states and two Canadian provinces, has been in danger of flooding for thousands of years. To avoid flooding, levees were originally constructed on the Mississippi in 1726. More than 1,000 miles of levees were located along the river by 1858. The Mississippi was confined to a single channel by the levees, which also blocked access to the floodplain where water would flow over the riverbanks during relatively small floods. However, in late 1926 and 1927, after a few months of unusually heavy rain, the Mississippi River flooded again, leading to 246 deaths and property damage amounting to 350 million dollars. Following this disaster, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers strengthened river management plans by constructing drainage districts and setting up a safety inspection system, which ______________________.

Meeting the challenge of climate change demands that people make personal sacrifices now to minimize harm that others will suffer in the future. That’s a tough sell. Our species evolved as small-group animals with a focus on our own survival and short-term needs, along with those of our offspring and near kin. We are not programmed to worry much about the welfare of our great-grandchildren, much less the descendants of people living far away. You may be willing to resist some unhealthy snacks and find some time to exercise in order to be healthier and be around longer for your children. But how willing would you be to exercise more and eat a healthier diet to increase the odds that your great-grandchildren will be a bit better off? It is that kind of sacrifice, one that requires us to _______________, that is called for if we are to meet the challenge of climate change.

Even genuinely small cultural mistakes can have enormous consequences. Many older and even some younger Germans, for instance, do not like to converse too much during meals. They will ordinarily begin the meal by taking a sip of beer or soda, then pick up the knife and fork and hold them throughout the meal, putting them down only when they have finished eating. For many Germans eating is a serious business, not to be disturbed by trivial comments and animated conversation. Many Italians, on the other hand, tend to talk constantly during meals and wave their hands repeatedly. As a result, a German and an Italian dining with one another may feel offended by each other’s behavior. Much time is wasted negotiating acceptable rules of behavior that could otherwise be spent on substantive issues, including the development of trust.

Even when people are told about the better-than-average bias, most individuals believe that this bias does not apply to them, something psychologists have labelled blind-spot bias — the belief that you are not as biased as others in your self-evaluations of talents.

Take a close look at the overall status of college graduates in today’s job market, and look as well at the numbers indicating how far employment has fallen in manufacturing.

Rain forests are diverse places. Between the forest floor and the highest branches of the tallest trees, there are many different kinds of environments. These environments can be vertically divided into four layers, each with unique characteristics and species.

The emergent layer is the highest level of the rain forest. Trees in the sparse emergent layer may grow up to 250 feet tall. Often, there are just one or two trees of this height in an acre of rain forest. Designed to withstand dry winds, their leaves are small and pointed and covered with a wax that helps them retain water. There are many species of birds that can be found in the emergent layer, including hummingbirds, toucans, and macaws. Estimates suggest that more than 20% of the planet’s bird population lives in this layer of the rain forest. Species of butterflies, bats, and monkeys come to the high branches of the emergent layer in search of food and shelter. For them, it is a haven where they find refuge from the predators of the forest below.

Trees directly beneath the emergent layer form the canopy, the layer of rain forest that is between 65 and 100 feet from the ground. The canopy is where much of the action in the rain forest occurs. Extremely dense branches and leaves form what is essentially a roof over the two layers beneath it, filtering out most of the sunlight and much of the rainfall. As a result, it serves a protective function by dissipating heavy rains and winds and preventing temperature changes in the layers below. Leaves in the canopy have “drip spouts,” which allow rain to run off, keeping mold from forming. The canopy is home to more animal species than any other layer of the rain forest.

Above ground level but below heights of 30 feet is the layer of rain forest known as the understory. Vegetation in this layer includes shrubs, small trees, and the trunks of taller trees. Because only 2% to 5% of the sunlight can penetrate the layers above, some plants here have special adaptations to help them survive with such low light levels. Their leaves may be exceptionally large to enable them to collect as much sunlight as possible. In addition, the undersides of leaves may be deep red in color, which helps them absorb different wavelengths of light. An array of insect species, frogs, and snakes inhabit the understory.

The lowest layer of the rain forest, the forest floor, is at ground level. Like the understory, the forest floor receives little sunlight because of the branches and leaves above. Relatively few plants grow in the dim light there. Yet, the forest floor is a rich environment for organisms known as decomposers, which feed on dead plants and animals. Bacteria, fungi, earthworms, and millipedes obtain nutrients by decomposing the organic debris found on the forest floor.