Deerhaven had a population of 42,000 in 1960 and a population of 58,000 in 1990. Based on this data, the city planner developed an exponential model to
predict the city’s population in 2013. As it turns out, the city had a population of
75,000 in 2013. Which of these is the best description of how close the prediction
was to the actual population in 2013?

Hi!

Imagine these two values on a number line. The further right you go, the more positive you are. The further left you go, the more negative you are. 

Let's count from 17, all the way to 33.

17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33.

Now, that's quite a lot of numbers. This means 33 is approximately 16 units or so further right than 17 is. 

With this in mind, we can conclusively determine that 33.80 is greater than 17.88. 

Hopefully, this helps! =)