Classified Ad Revenue. The table below lists the newspaper revenue from classified ads for selected years from 1975 to 2009.
Year, x Newspaper Revenue from Classified Ads, y (in billions of dollars)
1975, 0 ................. $2.159
1980, 5 ................. 4.222
1985, 10 ............... 8.375
1990, 15 ................11.506
1995, 20 ................13.742
2000, 25 ................19.608
2005, 30 ................17.312
2006, 31 ................16.986
2007, 32 ................14.186
2008, 33 ................9.975
2009, 34 ................6.179
a) Use a graphing calculator to fit cubic and quartic functions to the data. Let x represent the
number of years since 1975. Using R2-values, determine which function is the best fit.
b) Using the function found in part (a), estimate the newspaper revenue from classified ads in 1988, in 2002, and in 2010?