Reading Comprehension

Joseph Glarthaar's Forged in Battle is not the first excellent
study of Black soldiers and their White officers in the
Civil War, but it uses more soldiers' letters and diaries-
including rare material from Black soldiers-and concen-
(5) rates more intensely on Black-White relations in Black
regiments than do any of its predecessors. Glathaar's title
expresses his thesis: loyalty, friendship, and respect among
White officers and Black soldiers were fostered by the
mutual dangers they faced in combat.
(10 ) Glarthaar accurately describes the government's discriminatory
treatment of Black soldiers in pay, promotion, medi
cal care, and job assignments, appropriately emphasizing
the campaign by Black soldiers and their officers to get the
opportunity to fight. That chance remained limited through
(15) out the war by army policies that kept most Black units
serving in rear-echelon assignments and working in labor
battalions. Thus, while their combat death rate was only
one-third that of White units, their mortality rate from
disease, a major killer in his war, was twice as great.
(20) Despite these obstacles, the courage and effectiveness of
several Black units in combat won increasing respect from
initially skeptical or hostile White soldiers. As one White
officer put it, "they have fought their way into the respect
of all the army."
(25) In trying to demonstrate the magnitude of this attitudinal
change, however, Glarthaar seems to exaggerate the
prewar racism of the White men who became officers in
Black regiments. "Prior to the war," he writes of these
men, "virtually all of them held powerful racial prejudices."
(30) While perhaps true of those officers who joined Black
units for promotion or other self-serving motives, this statement
misrepresents the attitudes of the many abolitionists
who became officers in Black regiments. Having spent
years fighting against the race prejudice endemic in Ameri-
(35) can society; they participated eagerly in this military
experiment, which they hoped would help African Americans
achieve freedom and postwar civil equality. By current
standards of racial egalitarianism, these men's paternalism
toward African Americans was racist. But to call their
(40) feelings "powerful racial prejudices" is to indulge in
generational chauvinism-to judge past eras by present standards.


The passage suggests that which of the following was true of
Black units' disease mortality rates in the Civil War?
(A) They were almost as high as the combat mortality rates
of White units.
(B) They resulted in part from the relative inexperience of
these units when in combat.
(C) They were especially high because of the nature of these
units' usual duty assignments.
(D) They resulted in extremely high overall casualty rates in
Black combat units.
(E) They exacerbated the morale problems that were caused
by the army's discriminatory policies.

Whats wrong with A? as the mortality rate of black soldiers during war is 1/3 => white soldiers
have the remaining 2/3 which = mortality rate of blacks due to disease(2 * 1/3).Is it not suggested mathematically?

How "extremely high" mentioned in D correct? It is mentioned in passage as "major killer" but not extremely high.

A is saying that Black soldiers' disease mortality rate was twice the White soldier's disease rate. We have no way to compare combat vs. disease rates.

The line "a major killer in this war" is why D is correct.

Hi Jim,

The comparison is between black units' disease mortality rate and combat mortality rate of White units.

The passage suggests that which of the following was true of
Black units' disease mortality rates in the Civil War?
(A) They were almost as high as the combat mortality rates
of White units.

I still cannot refute this logic.
Kindly help