Several Years Ago, a Large City Undertook a Major Effort

Multiple Choice

Several years ago, a large city undertook a major effort to encourage carpooling in order to reduce traffic congestion. The accompanying table shows the number of carpoolers, in thousands, from 2007 to 2012 . Use regression to obtain a function f(x) =a+b ln x that models the data, where x=1 corresponds to 2007, x=2 to 2008, and so on. Round the constants a and b to the nearest hundredth.
$\begin{array} { l | c | c | c | c | c | c } \text { Year } & 2007 & 2008 & 2009 & 2010 & 2011 & 2012 \\\hline \text { Carpoolers } & 3.9 & 8.1 & 10.3 & 11.8 & 12.6 & 13.2\end{array}$

A) f(x) =4.22+5.25ln x
B) f(x) =4.33+5.17ln x
C) f(x) =4.29+5.14ln x
D) f(x) =4.40+5.32ln x