Question

A water tank holds 648 gallons but is leaking at a rate of 4 gallons per week. A second water tank holds 864 gallons but is leaking at a rate of 7 gallons per week. After how many weeks will the amount of water in the two tanks be the same?

The amount of water in the two tanks will be the same in ________ weeks.

Answer 1

The amount of water in the two tanks will be the same after 72 weeks.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find out after how many weeks the amount of water in the two tanks will be the same, you can set up an equation to represent the situation. Let x be the number of weeks.

For the first tank, the amount of water remaining after x weeks can be represented as 648 - 4x.

For the second tank, the amount of water remaining after x weeks can be represented as 864 - 7x.

Setting these two expressions equal to each other, we get:

648 - 4x = 864 - 7x

Solving for x, we subtract 648 from both sides and add 7x to both sides:

216 = 3x

x = 72

Therefore, the amount of water in the two tanks will be the same after 72 weeks.