During the Second World War, about 375,000 civilians died in the Unite

I agree with D is very sure it is likely to be correct

(A) nobody adds those deaths... the argument is about how likely it is to die overseas or in the US... not armed forces in US though
(B) nothing said about the difference
(C) out of scope... reasons are irrelevant
(D) the total number of civilians is far greater than the number of armed forces overseas, therefore comparing deaths is useless if you don't not the total for each group
(E) again, out of score... reasons are not the case of the argument.

Can somebody explain the D in detail. I am not getting how we are getting higher death rates for smaller groups?
"D exposes this absurdity by pointing out the need to compare death rates of the two groups, which would reveal the higher death rate for the smaller group."

Clean D

Supposre the population of civilians is US is 3 Million
out these 375,000 died = ~19%

and armed forces population is 8,00,000
out of these 4,08,000 dies = 51%
so the conclusion "it was
not much more dangerous to be overseas in the armed forces during the Second World War than it was to stay
at home as a civilian." fails

hope this clears

D is better and more accurate than B.
if there are 60 civilian deaths in a population of 10,000 and 40 armed forces deaths in a battalion of 100 army men, then according to B 60% deaths will be from civilian population n 40% deaths will be from military.

whereas if we consider D, death percentage will be ( 60/10000) *100 = 0.6 % for civilian and (40/100)*100 = 40% for armed forces.

so serving army is more dangerous

+1 for option D. This is essentially a "flaw type" question. The flaw in the reasoning is that the argument only compares numbers ; it should be comparing figures per thousands. Option D clearly states this !

Just by comparing the count of deaths at home and at overseas, author assumes the population to be same at both locations and hence conclude that it is safer to be at home than at overseas.
This is what option D says.
Hence D

B can be thought of as comparing different numerators with the same denominator or comparing proportions.
The facts don't change.
If total deaths were 1m then we would have ~30% to ~40%

Conversely, D shows us that we can compare a rate (deaths per 1k) that would consider each population as mutually exclusive - enabling a more reasonable comparison.

The correct answer - option D.

Let us see why.

Conclusion: It was not much more dangerous to be overseas in the armed forces, than it was to stay at home as a civilian

Author's logic:
1. Total #Deaths
- Civilians in the US: 375k
- Armed forces overseas: 408k

Not much of a difference in terms of total deaths.

Flaw in the author's argument:

When will the above statistic not be indicative that being a civilian in the US was almost equally at risk of death/unsafe as a armed forces person overseas?

What if a significantly higher proportion of civilians in the US survived rather than died, and a significantly more number of armed forces overseas died rather than survived.


Example:
# Civilians in US = 10000k
# Civilian in US Deaths = 375k
Death Rate (% deaths for civilians) = 3.75% say 4%

i.e. 4% of civilians in the US actually died due to WW2

# Armed forces persons overseas = 500k
# Armed forces overseas deaths = 408k
Death rate (% deaths for Armed forces persons overseas) = 408/500 = 82%

i.e. 82% of armed forces people overseas in WW2 died due to the War

if only 4% of civilians died due to WW2 (or 40 out of every 1000), but 82% of armed forces died due to WW2 (or 820 out of every 1000), can the author still say that it was not much dangerous to be overseas in the armed forces than it was to stay at home as a civilian?

This is the logic behind option D, which compares death rates per 1000 members. This data would clearly reveal the absurdity of the author's argument.

(A) Counting deaths among members of the armed forces who served in the United States in addition to deaths among members of the armed forces serving overseas
The argument is a comparison between armed forces and civilians. Data about armed forces in the US will not help find the flaw in the incorrect comparison made by the author (flaw in author's argument).

(B) Expressing the difference between the numbers of deaths among civilians and members of the armed forces as a percentage of the total number of deaths
Also does not help.

Say there were a total of 1000k deaths in the war

Option B simply means express the difference in deaths as a %. This would give us 375k/1000k *100 = 37.5, and 40.8%. how does this data help us find the flaw?

(C) Separating deaths caused by accidents during service in the armed forces from deaths caused by combat injuries
Cause of death is irrelevant in this argument

(D) Comparing death rates per thousand members of each group rather than comparing total numbers of deaths
As discussed above, this is the correct answer

(E) Comparing deaths caused by accidents in the United States to deaths caused by combat in the armed forces
The argument is a comparison between armed forces and civilians. Data about deaths caused by accidents in the US vs deaths caused by combat in the US does not help us find the flaw in the incorrect comparison made by the author (flaw in author's argument).

Hope this helps.

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.