Modelo examen 6 – Reading – Part 2

Read the text. Use the sentences to complete the text. Choose the correct sentence for each gap. There are two extra sentences you will not need.

For those of you who missed your mandatory two seconds of Dominican history: Trujillo, one of the twentieth century’s most infamous dictators, ruled the Dominican Republic between 1930 and 1961 with an implacable ruthless brutality. A portly, sadistic, pig-eyed mulato who bleached his skin, wore platform shoes, 1. _______________________________ came to control nearly every aspect of the DR’s political, cultural, social, and economic life through a potent (and familiar) 2._________________________________; treated the country like it was a plantation and he was the master. At first glance, he was just your prototypical Latin American caudillo, but his power was terminal in ways that few historians or writers have ever truly captured or, I would argue, imagined. He was our Sauron, our Once and Future Dictator, a character so outlandish, so perverse, so dreadful 3._________________________________Famous for changing ALL THE NAMES of ALL THE LAND MARKS in the Dominican Republic to honor himself (Pico Duarte became Pico Trujillo, and Santo Domingo de Guzman, the first and oldest city in the New World, became Ciudad Trujillo); for making ill monopolies out of every slice of the national patrimony (which quickly made him one of the wealthiest men on the planet); for building one of the largest militaries in the hemisphere (the guy had bomber wings, for Christ’s sake); 4.________________________________________, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of them; for expecting, no, insisting on absolute veneration from his pueblo (tellingly, the national slogan was ‘Dios y Trujillo’); for running the country like it was a Marine boot camp; for stripping friends and allies of their positions and properties for no reason at all; and for his almost supernatural abilities. Outstanding accomplishments include:5.____________________________________________; one of the longest, most damaging U.S.-backed dictatorships in the Western Hemisphere (and if we Latin types are skillful at anything it’s tolerating U.S.-backed dictators, so you know this was a hard-earned victory, the chilenos and the argentinos are still appealing); the creation of the first modern kleptocracy (Trujillo was Mobutu before Mobutu was Mobutu); the systematic bribing of American senators; and, last but not least, the forging of the Dominican peoples into a modern state (did what his Marine trainers, during the Occupation, were unable to do). 

A. the 1937 genocide against the Haitian and Haitian-Dominican community

B. mixture of violence, intimidation, massacre, rape, co-optation, and terror

C, including the number of times it happened during all those years.

D. for raping every hot girl in sight, even the wives of his subordinates

E. and had a fondness for Napoleon-era haberdashery,

F. alas, the danger was too great to even consider it

G. that not even a sci-fi writer could have made him up.