Question
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  1. A water tank can be filled with water by two pipes
    in 1 hour and 20 minutes. If the smaller pipe takes
    2 hours longer than the larger pipe to fill the tank,
    find the time taken by each pipe to fill the tank.

Ask by Whittaker Bright. in Singapore
Mar 21,2025

Upstudy AI Solution

Tutor-Verified Answer

Answer

The larger pipe takes 2 hours to fill the tank, and the smaller pipe takes 4 hours to fill the tank.

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Bonus Knowledge

To solve this problem, let’s denote the time taken by the larger pipe to fill the tank as hours. This means the smaller pipe takes hours.
The work done by both pipes in one hour is:
  • The larger pipe does of the tank in one hour.
  • The smaller pipe does of the tank in one hour.
Together, they can fill the tank in hour and minutes, which is hours. Therefore, their combined rate of work is:
Now, clearing the fractions gives:
Simplifying leads to:
Multiplying through by to eliminate the fraction:
Rearranging:
Now, we can solve this quadratic equation using the quadratic formula where :
This gives us two possible solutions:
  1. hours (larger pipe)
  2. hours (not valid since time cannot be negative)
Thus, the larger pipe takes hours to fill the tank, and the smaller pipe, which takes hours longer, takes hours.
So, the larger pipe fills the tank in hours, while the smaller pipe fills it in hours.

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