Question

read the excerpt from a genetics of justice by julia alvarez. by the time my mother married my father, however, she knew all about the true nature of the dictatorship. thousands had lost their lives in failed attempts to return the country to democracy. family friends, whom she had assumed had dropped away of their own accord, turned out to have been disappeared. my father had been lucky. as a young man, he had narrowly escaped to canada after the plot he had participated in as a student failed. this was to be the first of two escapes. that same year, 1937, el generalisimo ordered the overnight slaughter of some eighteen thousand haitians, who had come across the border to work on sugarcane plantations for slave wages. what is the central idea of this excerpt? the dictatorship resulted in many deaths. it was possible for people to escape to canada. many people fought for a democratic nation. the author’s family was unusually lucky.

Explanation:

The excerpt mentions "Thousands had lost their lives in failed attempts...", "the overnight slaughter of some eighteen thousand Haitians", and also notes the father's lucky escape. The first option, "The dictatorship resulted in many deaths", aligns with the details about deaths from failed attempts and the slaughter. The other options: escaping to Canada is a minor detail (not central), fighting for democracy is mentioned but the focus is on deaths from dictatorship, and the family's luck is a side note. So the central idea is about the dictatorship's deadly consequences.

Answer:

A. The dictatorship resulted in many deaths.