In the years following an eight-percent increase in the federal tax on a pack of cigarettes, sales of cigarettes fell ten percent. In contrast, in the year prior to the tax increase, sales had fallen one percent. The volume of cigarette sales is therefore strongly related to the after-tax price of a pack of cigarettes.

The argument above requires which of the following assumptions?

【选项】For the year following the tax increase, the pretax price of a pack of cigarettes was not eight or more percents lower than it had been the previous year.