8th grade math
posted by Anonymous on .
A fish tank weighs 80 pounds when 40% full of water, and it weighs 140 pounds when completely full. How many pounds does the tank weigh when empty?
Okay, so you have two variables, let's call them x and y. x will be the weight of the water when the tank is full, and y will be the weight of the tank.
So you can get two equations from the question:
and now you can do elimination by subtracting (1) from (2).
so you get
then divide by .6 to get
and since you want y, sub x=100 into (2)
So the tank weighs 40 pounds when empty.
Sorry if this is a little long (I wasn't sure how much detail is too much, you see)