How are the solution sets to s<3 and |s|<3 different ?

Campus rentals rents 2 and 3 bedrooms apartments for $700 ans $900 a month respectively. last month they had six vacant apartments and reported $4600 in lost rent. how many of each type of apartment were vacant?

Having a hard time understanding this question (see attachment).

If your score on your next statistics test is converted to a z score, which of these z scores would you prefer: minus2.00, minus1.00, 0, 1.00, 2.00? why? a. the z score of 2.00 is most preferable because it is 2.00 standard deviations above the mean and would correspond to the highest of the five different possible test scores. b. the z score of 0 is most preferable because it corresponds to a test score equal to the mean. c. the z score of minus2.00 is most preferable because it is 2.00 standard deviations below the mean and would correspond to the highest of the five different possible test scores. d. the z score of minus1.00 is most preferable because it is 1.00 standard deviation below the mean and would correspond to an above average