SSC CGL Pipe and Cistern Practice Test 2026 — Free Chapter Wise Questions

Pipe and Cistern Tests — Pick a Level and Start

Tap a level to see every test in it. Level 1 is set at real SSC CGL difficulty — start there the day you finish the concept. Level 2 is pitched above the exam, to push accuracy under pressure.

Pipes and cisterns look like a chapter of their own, but they run on the time and work method with one extra rule. Take the tank’s capacity as the LCM of the given times, count each pipe’s efficiency as the units it moves in an hour, and add those efficiencies — with an outlet or a leak entered as a minus. Almost every question in the chapter is that one line, applied once or applied in stages.

The marks are lost in three places. The first is adding an outlet instead of subtracting it — an inlet of 8 hours with an outlet of 12 hours fills the tank in 24 hours, not in 4 hours 48 minutes. The second is the overshoot in pipes that take turns: the tank fills partway through a filling hour, before the emptying pipe gets another go, so dividing by the gain per pair always gives too much. The third is answering the wrong stretch of time — giving the time after a pipe was shut when the question counted from the start, or the reverse. Each test puts twenty-five pipe and cistern questions in front of you in one sitting, which is what makes those checks automatic.

How Many Pipe and Cistern Questions Are Asked in SSC CGL?

Pipes and cisterns is a short chapter that usually appears alongside time and work. The method is fixed, the numbers are small, and a prepared candidate rarely spends more than a minute on one.

Counts vary by shift. Pipes and cisterns shares its whole method with time and work, so the hour you spend here also pays back in that chapter.

What You Will Practice in the Pipe and Cistern Chapter

Core topics

• Two or three pipes filling together, including times given in hours and minutes
• One pipe’s time recovered from a joint time and the other pipe’s time
• An inlet against an outlet — from empty, from full, or from a part-full tank
• Many identical inlets and outlets, and the number of pipes needed to beat a deadline
• One pipe recovered from two or three combined timings, including an outlet
• A pipe’s flow changing midway, or one pipe swapped for another
• A pipe opened late, with the answer as a number of hours or as a clock time
• A pipe closed after a few hours, or closed a set time before the tank is full
• When to shut a pipe so that the tank fills at an exact time
• The share of the water that came through one pipe
• Multi-stage schedules where pipes are added, removed and switched
• Two inlets, or an inlet and an outlet, run alternately
• A leak on its own, a leak with two pipes, and a leak that starts midway
• Capacity from a pipe or a drain given in litres per minute or per hour
• Pair times — A with B, B with C, C with A — including an outlet in the set
• The number of identical taps against the filling time, and taps added or shut midway
• A joint time with the gap between two pipes, solved through a quadratic
• Three-pipe relations and partial blockages
• Flow through pipes of different diameters
• Tank volume, water level and the rate at which the level rises
• Part of a tank filled or left empty after a given time, and emptying a part-full tank

Rules worth memorising

The first three rows carry the chapter. Most of the others are those three applied in a particular order.

The three mistakes that cost the most marks

• Adding an outlet’s efficiency. An inlet of 8 hours and an outlet of 12 hours give 3 − 2 = 1 unit an hour on a 24-unit tank, so 24 hours. Adding them gives 4 hours 48 minutes, and that wrong value is almost always one of the options.
• Overshooting in alternate-pipe questions. A tank that gains 1 unit per pair of hours does not take 2 × capacity hours: it fills during an inlet hour, before the outlet runs again. Stop the pairs once one more inlet hour can finish the job.
• Answering the wrong stretch of time. Many questions have two phases. Check whether the question counts from the start, from the moment a pipe was shut, or asks for a clock time — and whether it wants the time a pipe ran or how early it stopped.

Solved Examples — SSC CGL Pipe and Cistern

How the Pipe and Cistern Chapter Tests Work

• 25 questions per test, with a full question palette — answered, skipped, marked for review, not visited.
• Optional 15-minute timer — with the clock to build exam speed, without it while you are still learning the chapter.
• Marking: +2 correct, −0.5 wrong, 0 unattempted — the same scheme as the real paper.
• Solutions, shortcut tricks and concept notes open after you submit, question by question.
• English and हिंदी, chosen at the start of every test.
• Free with a TrickySSC account — sign in once with Google or your mobile number, and every test is open to you.

How to Prepare Pipe and Cistern for SSC CGL

1. Set the capacity first. Take the LCM of every time in the question, including any joint time, and work in units from then on.
2. Give every pipe a sign. Write inlets with a plus and outlets and leaks with a minus before you add anything.
3. Bring all times to one unit. Hours and minutes, or a mixed number such as 4½ hours, must be converted before the LCM.
4. Split schedules into phases. Units in a phase are the net efficiency times its hours; the last phase is the units left divided by its net efficiency.
5. Use the add-back trick for a pipe shut early. Pretend it ran to the end, add the units it missed to the capacity, and divide by the full efficiency.
6. Walk through alternate-pipe questions. Whole pairs first, then hour by hour; the tank almost always fills partway through a filling hour.
7. Keep litres and units apart. When a pipe is given in litres per minute, work the whole question in litres, and remember 1 m³ is 1000 litres.
8. Underline what is asked. Total time, time after a change, a clock time, the time a pipe ran or how early it stopped are all different answers.
9. Do Level 1 untimed, the same day you finish the theory. It is set at real SSC CGL difficulty; the aim is picking the right method, not speed.
10. Repeat Level 1 with the 15-minute clock on, then move to Level 2. After that, verify against a previous year paper and a full mock test under locked sectional timing.

Related SSC CGL Maths Chapters

These chapters share the same efficiency and ratio work. Practising them as a block is the fastest route through arithmetic.

All SSC CGL Chapter Wise Tests

Every chapter below has its own free Level 1 and Level 2 tests with full solutions.

SSC CGL Pipe and Cistern — Frequently Asked Questions

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