Word Problem

Question

There are a total of 80 full containers of water in a storage unit. Some of the containers have a capacity of 10 gallons and the rest have a capacity of 20 gallons. If the containers have a combined total of 1,100 gallons of water in them, what fraction of the number of containers in the storage unit have a capacity of 10 gallons?

Answer 1

let x = the number of 10 gal containers

 

80 - x = the number of 20 gal containers

 

10x + 20(80 - x) = 1100

10x + 1600 - 20x = 1100

-10x = -500

x = 50

 

There are 50 ten gallon containers. The fraction of containers in the storage unit with capacity of 10 gal is 50/80 = 5/8.

 

Incidentally, there are 80 - 50 = 30 twenty gallon containers in the storage unit.