Two pails contained a total of 21.8 liters of water. After 0.36 liters of water is poured from the small pail into big pail, the amount of water in the big pail is 9 times that in the small pail. How much water was in each pail at first?

Answer 1

Let x = big pail and y = small pail
Equation 1 : x + y = 21.8
Equation 2 : 9*(y - 0.36) + (y - 0.36) = 21.8
Therefore, big pail = 19.26 litres
Therefore, small pail = 2.54 litres