Q.A cylindrical tank of radius 10 cm is being filled with sugar at the rate of cm/s. The rate at which the height of the sugar inside the tank is increasing is: (A) cm/s (B) cm/s (C) cm/s (D) cm/s
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →The volume of a cylinder is . Since the radius is constant, the rate of change of volume with respect to time is . Given cm³/s and cm, solving gives cm/s. The correct option is (C).
This is a classic Related Rates problem. The core idea is that when two quantities are linked by a geometric formula (here, volume and height of a cylinder), their rates of change with respect to time are also linked. You differentiate the relationship with respect to time, plug in what you know, and solve for the unknown rate.
The key insight: the tank’s radius is fixed at 10 cm. So as sugar pours in, the height increases, but the cross-sectional area stays the same. That means the volume increases at a constant rate per unit height — specifically, each 1 cm rise in height adds cm³ of volume. Since sugar is being added at exactly cm³/s, the height must be rising at 1 cm/s.
Let’s work it out formally.
- Write the relationship between volume and height. For a cylinder, . Here cm, so
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Differentiate both sides with respect to time .
Since is constant, .
This is the related rates equation — it tells us how fast the volume changes in terms of how fast the height changes.
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Substitute the given rate.
We know cm³/s. So:
- Solve for . Divide both sides by : …
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