哪位牛牛给看一下？再求！！

T-9-Q19.
            天山-7-11

In 1992 outlaw fishing boats began illegally harvesting lobsters from the territorial waters of the country of Belukia. Soon after, the annual tonnage of lobster legally harvested in Belukian waters began declining; in 1996, despite there being no reduction in the level of legal lobster fishing activity, the local catch was 9,000 tons below pre-1992 levels. It is therefore highly likely that the outlaw fishing boats harvested about 9,000 tons of lobster illegally that year.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

1. The illegal lobster harvesting was not so expensive that the population of catchable lobsters in Belukia’s territorial waters had sharply declined by 1996

2. The average annual lobster catch, in tons, of an outlaw fishing boat is has increased steadily since 1992.

3. Outlaw fishing boats do not , as a group, harvest more lobsters than do licensed lobster-fishing boats.

4. The annual legal lobster harvest in Belukia in 1996 was not significantly less than 9,000 tons.

5. A significant proportion of Belukia’s operators of licensed lobster-fishing boats were out of business between 1992 and 199.

I searched in the CD forum, and did not find any thread related to this question.  So please help.

The key is A, but American reasoning process is hard for me to understand?

NND，编辑了好几遍啊

题目似乎有typo，应该是expansive而不是expensive

假定是非法捕捞没有特别普遍以至于导致龙虾大量减少

因为如果是这样，那么尽管合法的少收获了9000，也不意味这非法的多捕捞了这么多。

that makes sense

The illegal lobster harvesting was not so expansive that the population of catchable lobsters in Belukia’s territorial waters had sharply declined by 1996 .

请问怎么理解这句话？

是不是说， 非法捕虾不普遍，1996年可捕的虾量并没有明显减少。

how to understand the meaning of " not so xx as to" and "not as xx that xx"?

My understanding is that if A is expessed as The illegal lobster harvesting was not so expansive that the population of catchable lobsters in Belukia’s territorial waters had
                        not sharply declined by 1996, then A makes sense.

呵呵

我觉得可以这样看

so expansive that....是说这么普遍以至于龙虾大量减少

not "so expansive that..." 直接用not 否定全句话（上述事实没有发生），做假设题可以把选项取非，如果取非之后否定了结论就是假定。这道题目正好可以这样做。

你给的例子 "not so expansive" that"...",好像that后面是因为太不。。而导致的结果