The Push in the Pipe
Written by Studio AM.
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Clean water in a tank must still reach the people who need it. It has to reach a fifth-floor kitchen, and it has to arrive with enough force to fill a glass in seconds. Water pressure is a push on each unit of area. One way to create it is to store water above the taps.
A water tower uses this principle. Pump the treated water up into a tall tank and let gravity do the rest. The higher the tank stands above the taps, the harder the water pushes when a tap is opened. This is why water towers stand on high ground or on tall supports.
A tower also stores a supply for busy periods. Pumps can work more steadily than the demand for water; a city wakes, washes, and cooks inside the same hour. The tank fills through the quiet night and drains through the busy morning, which can reduce how much pumping capacity is needed for short peaks in demand. When the power fails, stored water can maintain a supply for a time, although pressure falls as its level drops.
The same pressure that serves the fifth floor also pushes on every joint in the network. Excessive pressure can worsen a leak at a weak joint.
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Questions
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Question 1 of 4
What is the passage mainly about?
The answer is A: Height gives a water system its pressure, and that pressure both serves buildings and strains pipes.
The passage explains how height makes pressure, lists what the tower buys, then closes by turning that same pressure into a problem. Only the first choice holds both halves.
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Question 2 of 4
How can storage help with a short peak in water use?
The answer is C: It can reduce the pumping capacity needed for that peak.
Stored water can meet some of the extra demand instead of requiring pumps to provide it all at once.
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Question 3 of 4
In this passage, "pressure" is best understood as
The answer is D: the push of water on each unit of area
The opening defines pressure as a push on each unit of area.
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Question 4 of 4
The last two sentences suggest that
The answer is A: the height that makes taps work also makes leaks more likely
The same pressure that moves water to taps also acts on pipe joints, where excessive pressure can worsen a leak.
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