No botanist lives long enough to study the complete life cycle of an individual California redwood tree. Nevertheless, by observing many trees at different stages, botanists can piece together the evolution of a single tree. Exactly the same principle applies in astronomy to the study of the life-story of globular clusters, huge spherical aggregations of about a million stars all swarming about each other. Which of the following is an assumption made in the passage above? A. The methods of scientists in one field generally carry over to other fields even if the subject matter is vastly different. B. Obserations of the life cycle of a single individual have little value in scientific studies. C. Globular clusters at different stages of development are accessible to astronomers for observation and study. D. There are globular clusters that have not so far been detected by astronomers. E. Redwoods and globular clusters must both be studied intensively now, while they still exist in sufficient numbers.

答案为C，想问A为什么不对？ 我觉得A和C很难取舍，将A取非，"the methods in one field cannot be applied to another field"，那么以上推理就不能成立了，A也是一个assumption啊

我的理解是这样的:

a中表述的范围太大了, 关键是有一个generally, 取非应该是sometimes(个人理解), 所以

不能作为assumption;

本题的assumption可以有两个: 一个说明进行类比推理的合理性, The methods of

scientists in observing trees can be used for observing Globular clusters; 另外

一个是类比的可行性, 就是c.