It’s the second one, here’s how I got the answer to it.
Go to askrose.org but you’ll have to put in that you’re from Indiana to get help
represents the number of households that own ...blah...
years 1996. So
is the number of households in the year 1996; we're told that
(since
is the number of households in millions).
At the end of each year, this number increases by 4.85%, i.e. a factor of 1.0485. This means after 1 year, the number of households is

After 2 years, or 1 year after the first year elapses, the number is

After 3 years,

and so on, with the general pattern of

This is the function you're asked to find.