심화영어독해 수업 자료 전체

Euphemisms are words or short expressions that people use when they need an indirect way to say something that would be considered rude if said directly. Understanding euphemisms is crucial if you want to talk with native English speakers.

So what are some examples of euphemisms? They are often used to talk about death. When we kill a sick pet, it sounds too horrible to use the word "kill." Instead, we "put the dog down," or we "put the dog to sleep." Similarly, with people's appearance, to say that someone is fat or ugly would seem very rude. So how about saying they're "cuddly" and "plain"? Euphemisms (A) _______.

Schools are a hotbed of euphemism use. Teachers have to be careful not to offend. If a student is lazy, he is "not working to his full potential," or maybe "his attitude is relaxed." If he is loud and arrogant, he "has strong opinions" in the teacher's diction.

Euphemisms are also often used to avoid causing offense to people of different races, or to disabled people (euphemistically known as "differently-abled"). People with learning difficulties are more politely referred to as being "intellectually challenged."

Also challenging for learners of English are the differences between American and British English. For example, Americans use "going to the bathroom" to refer to visiting the toilet, while the British sometimes use the much more cryptic expression "going to see a man about a dog"!

Another difficulty learners face is that euphemisms change. What was once an acceptable euphemism can become rude. For example, "toilet" only became unacceptable in the twentieth century, when it was replaced, in American English, by "bathroom." This changing status of euphemisms is known as the "euphemism treadmill."

1) to say는 an indirect way를 수식하는 형용사적 용법의 to부정사이며, that 이하에서 목적격 관계대명사 that의 선행사는 something이다.

2) 'too ~ to ...'는 '너무 ~해서 ...할 수 없다'라는 의미이다.

3) be used to + 동명사: ~하는 데 사용되다. avoid는 동명사를 목적어로 취하며, causing이 온다.

4) 'be referred to as'는 '~로 불리다(언급되다)'라는 의미이다. as는 전치사이므로 뒤에 동명사 being이 온다.

1. What is the best title for the passage?

a. Euphemism Is Just a Nice Way to Say "No"

b. Euphemisms Enrich English Language Vocabulary

c. Use Euphemisms as Much as Possible in Your Writing

d. If You Don't Know Euphemisms, You Don't Know English!

2. What is the best expression for blank (A)?

a. are a universal feature of languages

b. make people look better than they are

c. soften the blow of bad news or criticism

d. are preferred for talking about pets and people

3. What is NOT a correct euphemism for the words in brackets according to the passage?

a. plain (ugly)

b. strong-minded (lazy)

c. differently-abled (disabled)

d. put a pet to sleep (kill a sick pet)

4. Which word is closest in meaning to "cryptic" in paragraph 5?

a. unique

b. amusing

c. puzzling

d. exact

5. According to the passage, what is the "euphemism treadmill"?

a. similar euphemism examples between different languages

b. the practice of using euphemisms too often in one's communication

c. the confusion caused by euphemisms used in inappropriate situations

d. euphemisms which evolve, over time, into taboo words themselves

Fill in the blanks with the correct words.

Word bank: killed, rude, offensive, fat, change

Euphemisms are words or short expressions that people use to talk indirectly about things that sound _______ when talked about directly. Examples are talking about death and making comments about someone's physical appearance. Saying that an animal has been "put down" sounds better than saying it has been _______, and calling someone "cuddly" is more polite than saying they're _______. Similarly, euphemisms are used to talk about people of different races, or about disabled people. Over time, euphemisms _______, and what was once an acceptable, polite euphemism can become _______.

In our anxious age, increasing attention is being directed to our attention, and to the extraordinary and seemingly inescapable forces trying to exploit it. In one recent survey, 75 percent of respondents said they have some kind of attention problem. The psychologist Gloria Mark has documented a precipitous slide over the past two decades in our ability to stay on task in various screen-based activities. There must be a thousand and one articles asserting that the human attention span has dipped below that of the goldfish. About 11 percent of American children have been diagnosed with A.D.H.D.

We definitely have an attention problem, but it's not just a function of the digital technology that pings and beeps and flashes and nudges us ever closer to despair. It starts with the way we think about attention in the first place. An industry estimated to be worth $7 trillion views attention in the narrowest possible way: as something that can be operationalized and profitably controlled. That narrow view of attention has become so dominant that it even pervades efforts at resistance, including the countless well-meaning calls to "improve focus" or "avoid distraction." In our efforts to liberate ourselves, we have become anxious accountants of our own attention.

This kind of quantitative thinking about attention is the legacy of a little-known line of laboratory research. Begun in the 1880s, it was conceived in a spirit of bold inquiry. James McKeen Cattell, the first professor of psychology in the United States, used a fast-snap shutter to flash letters for a tiny fraction of a second. Dr. Cattell concluded that the results reflected a significant feature of cognitive ability: what he called the "span" of attention. Today we think about attention spans as a matter of duration, something that can be measured in seconds or minutes.

Laboratory studies of how time affects attention were largely driven by the application of quantitative psychology to the needs of 20th-century warfare. Norman Mackworth and his colleagues were studying human interaction with machines when geopolitics intervened. In 1940, as the Battle of Britain raged, he was recruited to conduct research into human interaction with a different kind of machine — the Royal Air Force was flying across the English Channel on dangerous missions against German U-boats. These radar devices registered hidden submarines as a luminous speck on a small screen. If no human being saw that flicker, the whole system was useless.

To avoid that outcome, Dr. Mackworth set hundreds of young recruits in front of a specially designed clock whose second hand would every so often skip forward a double beat. From this experiment emerged his key finding: the "vigilance decrement" — after around 30 minutes of staring at the clock, the test subjects started to miss a lot of skips. This research spawned Human Factors Research, which worked to quantify human behaviors in relation to machines. The Mackworth Clock is still used in research today.

In casinos: A new generation of electronic slot machines used carefully calibrated feedback to induce what the anthropologist Natasha Dow Schiill has called the "machine zone," a state of passive, frictionless and highly addictive engagement. Yet the ultimate realization of all that research isn't a peacetime pursuit. It's the war for consumers' attention waged on the portable computer in your pocket.

Real attention cannot be measured with a stopwatch or an app, and real human attention is far deeper and more complex than the ability to get stuff done. Armed with relentless, increasingly artificial-intelligence-driven feeds, Big Tech is conducting a successful attack on that richness, that expansiveness, that freedom. To survive it, and to build something better, we need to rethink attention itself.

The French mystic Simone Weil wrote: "The authentic and pure values — truth, beauty and goodness — in the activity of a human being are the result of one and the same act, a certain application of the full attention to the object." This is a theory of attention rooted in love, care and commitment, an ethics of attention that cannot be sold or stolen.

We must orient ourselves toward that vision. Call it attention activism or even, as we have come to think of it, a new politics of "attensity." This promises to be one of the central challenges of the decade ahead, an emergent movement for well-being, justice and flourishing. For freedom.

1. What specific percentage of people surveyed said that they have some kind of attention problem?
→ 75 percent

2. The Royal Air Force was trying to find a way to keep radar operators focused so they wouldn't miss seeing what kind of enemy vehicles on their screens?
→ German U-boats (submarines)

3. The authors note that the quantitative study of attention has resulted in a pervasive program to measure us while we sit in front of what?
→ screens

4. According to the text, what specific venue or industry used calibrated feedback on electronic machines to induce a highly addictive "machine zone"?
→ casinos

5. Big Tech is conducting a successful attack on our attention armed with relentless, increasingly AI-driven what?
→ feeds

[EZRA KLEIN]: I think a lot about the way we talk about attention. Because the way we talk about something is the way we think about it. What do you always hear about attention when you're in school? Pay attention, as if we have a certain amount of attention in our mental wallet, and we have to spend it wisely. We need to use it to buy algebra, rather than daydreaming.

[D. GRAHAM BURNETT]: In the classical model of the human mind, the world outside matches the world inside — like a camera obscura. You look out at the world and the world is in you, like light falling into a darkened box. Burnett compares this classical model of the human mind to the camera obscura — an early optical device where an image of the outside world is projected inside a dark box.

By the late 19th century, scientists moved away from seeing the mind as a kind of camera — something that precisely captures the world — and started to see the human body as being made of what they called "oozy" material. We're these oozy things made of protoplasm. The mind isn't a camera; it's a living, messy, organic thing. This shift in thinking about the mind accompanied the birth of attention as a concept.

In the 19th century, the concept of "attention" was born as a new language for talking about the coherence of the human subject. Before this, there was involuntary attention, but now attention became something you could cultivate, manage, and lose. The Pursuit tests tested the capability of military aviators. In these tests, pilots were gradually deprived of oxygen while trying to focus — an "unholy" investigation into attention under physiological stress.

In Henry James's novel, a character — a doctor that a woman desperately needs — describes attention using the metaphor of an "empty crystal cup." The cup is the capacity for attention; the doctor's role is to help fill it. Davenport and Beck, authors of "The Attention Economy," described attention as a "catalyst" — used to trigger awareness into action. Where attention lands, awareness activates.

1. Burnett compares the 'classical model' of the human mind to what early optical device?
→ camera obscura (카메라 옵스큐라)

2. According to Davenport and Beck, attention is a "catalyst" used to trigger awareness into what?
→ action (인식을 행동으로 활성화)

3. In the 'unholy' pursuit tests, what gas were pilots gradually deprived of while trying to focus?
→ oxygen (산소)

4. Which medical professional in a Henry James novel uses the metaphor of an 'empty crystal cup' to describe attention?
→ doctor (the physician / 의사)

5. In the 19th century, scientists moved away from seeing the mind as 'camera' and started to seeing the human body as being made of what 'oozy' material?
→ protoplasm (원형질 / oozy organic matter)

I. THE NORMALISATION OF AMNESIA

Social media is engineered to speed up your time. The endless scroll, the algorithmic feed, the rapid succession of images and videos — all of it is designed to keep you moving, keep you stimulated, and keep you from lingering too long on any one thing. This constant acceleration has a hidden cost: it normalizes amnesia. When we scroll through social media, we consume information without forming memories. The experiences pass through us like water through a net — momentarily felt but not retained.

Memory formation requires attention. To remember something, we must attend to it, process it, and encode it into our long-term memory. But social media actively discourages this kind of deep processing. It rewards speed and quantity over depth and quality. As a result, we consume more but remember less. And without memories, time loses its texture. Days, weeks, months blur together into an undifferentiated stream. Life feels shorter not because it is, but because so little of it is remembered.

IV. TAKING TIME BACK

If social media speeds up your subjective experience of time by discouraging memory formation, then the antidote is to slow down and form more memories. This means creating conditions for deep attention: reading long-form content, engaging in meaningful conversations, spending time in nature, pursuing hobbies that require sustained focus. These activities force your brain to process information deeply, creating rich memories that give texture to your experience of time.

V. REMEMBERING TO REMEMBER

The most important thing we can do to take back our time is to remember to remember. This means being intentional about creating memories. Keep a journal. Take photographs of meaningful moments — not to share on social media, but to preserve for yourself. Review your memories regularly. These practices build the habit of attending to your life, of noticing and preserving what matters.

1. What is the best title for the passage?
a. How Social Media Destroys Mental Health
b. Social Media Is Engineered to Speed Up Your Perception of Time
c. The Benefits of Memory Formation in the Digital Age
d. Why You Should Delete Social Media Today
→ 정답: b (소셜 미디어가 시간 인식을 빠르게 만들어 삶이 짧게 느껴진다는 핵심 주장)

2. According to Section I, why does social media make life feel shorter?
→ Because scrolling discourages memory formation; without memories, time has no texture and feels shorter.

3. Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a way to take back your time (Section IV)?
a. Reading long-form content   b. Spending time in nature   c. Posting more on social media   d. Pursuing hobbies requiring sustained focus
→ 정답: c

The lament is as old as education itself: Today, the problem of flighty or fragmented attention has reached truly catastrophic proportions. High school and college teachers overwhelmingly report that students' capacity for sustained, or deep attention has sharply decreased, significantly impeding the forms of study — reading, looking at art, round-table discussions — once deemed central to the liberal arts. By some measures you are lucky these days to get 47 seconds of focused attention on a discrete task. "Middlemarch" is tough sledding on that timeline.

We are witnessing the dark side of our new technological lives, whose extractive profit models amount to the systematic fracking of human beings — pumping vast quantities of high-pressure media content into our faces to force up a plume of the vaporous yet intimate stuff called attention, which now trades on the open market. Increasingly powerful systems seek to ensure that our attention is never truly ours.

In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution enabled harrowing new forms of exploitation and human misery. Yet through new forms of activity such as trade and labor organizing, working people pushed back against the practices that compromised their humanity and pressed money out of their blood. We are in need of a parallel revolution against the dishonest "little satanic mills" that live in our pockets.

Reversing this is going to require attention to attention, and dedicated spaces to learn (or relearn) the powers of this precious faculty. Spaces where we can give our focus to objects and language and other people, and thereby fashion ourselves in relation to a common world. If you think that this sounds like school, you're right: This revolution starts in our classrooms.

The implications of such a shift are vast. For two centuries, champions of liberal democracy have agreed that individual and collective freedom requires literacy. But as once-familiar calls for an informed citizenry give way to fears of informational saturation and perpetual distraction, literacy becomes less urgent than attensity — the capacity for attention. What democracy most needs now is an attentive citizenry — human beings capable of looking up from their screens, together.

We three are members of the Strother School of Radical Attention. Working in classrooms as well as museums, public libraries, and universities, we have heard from thousands of people about the ways they want to engage differently with the world. Consider a simple exercise called "Attention in Place," inspired by the work of Georges Perec, who sat at a corner café in Paris and over three days recorded everything he saw, with particular attention to the supposedly mundane. In our much shorter exercise, participants spend 30 minutes jotting down observations. Upon returning to the group, we sit in a circle and read one line each — and the results are close to miraculous: A common ground is rediscovered in the weave of collective attention.

1. What extended metaphor does the author use to describe how technology companies exploit human attention?
→ Fracking (수압파쇄법) — pumping high-pressure media content to force up valuable "attention" just as fracking drills extract oil/gas from the earth.

2. According to the passage, what concept does the author say democracy needs most now instead of literacy?
→ attensity — the capacity for sustained attention

3. What is the "Attention in Place" exercise and where does it take place?
→ Participants spend 30 minutes recording all observations in a neighborhood/public space, then share one line each in a circle. Inspired by Georges Perec's vigil in a Paris café.

When I told my mother I was moving to the other side of the planet to study technology ethics, she asked, "Why would you go somewhere so old to study something so new?" Working in the technology industry, I felt, was akin to climbing a mountain. That's one way to get to know a mountain. But if you want to see its shape, paint its profile, understand its relations with the wider geography — to do that, you have to go a few miles away and look back. I needed distance, not only physical but also temporal and ultimately critical, from the technology industry. "Amongst the rocks one cannot stop or think."

I soon found that my quest to gain distance from the mountain of the technology industry was paralleling a more general quest to gain distance from the assumptions of the Information Age altogether. It has always bemused and annoyed me that we so triumphantly call our time the "Information Age." Information is the water in which we swim. We instinctively frame issues pertaining to digital technologies in informational terms: privacy, security, surveillance. This is understandable. For most of human history, we've lived in environments of information scarcity.

Yet as the noted economist Herbert Simon pointed out in the 1970s, when information becomes abundant, attention becomes the scarce resource: "In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention."

Since Simon's time, the ubiquity of small, constantly connected computers has produced this information-attention inversion on a global scale. Today, in the average household in North America, you will find thirteen internet-connected devices. Our informational tools have rapidly become our informational environment.

To illustrate what I mean, consider the video game Tetris. The goal of Tetris is to rotate, stack, and clear different configurations of blocks as they rain down at a constantly increasing rate of speed. The total number of bricks is infinite — but their infinitude is not the problem. The challenge is the increasing speed at which they fall. In the same way, information quantity as such is only important insofar as it enables information velocity. At extreme speeds, processing fails. The main risk information abundance poses is not that one's attention will be used up, but rather that one will lose control over one's attentional processes.

We call our time the Information Age, but I think a better name for it would be the "Age of Attention." In the Age of Attention, digital technologies are uniquely poised to help us grapple with the new challenges we face — challenges which are, fundamentally, challenges of self-regulation.

1. What is the best title for the passage?
a. Why the Information Age Has Failed Us
b. How to Escape the Technology Industry
c. From Information Scarcity to Attention Scarcity: A New Age
d. Herbert Simon's Theory of Economics
→ 정답: c

2. According to Herbert Simon, what happens when information becomes abundant?
→ Attention becomes the scarce resource. ("a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention")

3. What does the Tetris metaphor explain about information and attention?
→ The problem is not the quantity of information (blocks) but the velocity (speed at which they fall). When speed becomes overwhelming, we lose control of attentional processes.

4. What name does the author suggest to replace "Information Age"?
→ "Age of Attention"