All SAT Math Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #2 : How To Find The Greatest Common Factor
, , and are positive two-digit integers.
The greatest common divisor of and is 10.
The greatest common divisor of and is 9.
The greatest common divisor of and is 8.
If is an integer, which of the following could it be equal to?
The greatest common divisor of and is 10. This means that the prime factorizations of and must both contain a 2 and a 5.
The greatest common divisor of and is 9. This means that the prime factorizations of and must both contain two 3's.
The greatest common divisor of and is 8. This means that the prime factorizations of and must both contain three 2's.
Thus:
We substitute these equalities into the given expression and simplify.
Since and are two-digit integers (equal to and respectively), we must have and . Any other factor values for or will produce three-digit integers (or greater).
is equal to , so could be either 1 or 2.
Therefore:
or
Example Question #1 : Greatest Common Factor
What's the greatest common factor of 6 and 8?
Greatest common factor is a common factor shared by two or more numbers. Both numbers are even, so let's divide both numbers by two. We get . These are prime numbers (factors of one and itsef) in which we are done. Anytime we have two prime numbers or one prime and one composite number, we are finished. So the greatest common factor is .
Example Question #3 : Greatest Common Factor
What's the greatest common factor of 4 and 8?
Greatest common factor is a common factor shared by two or more numbers. is a multiple of , so let's divide for both numbers. We get . We are finished as these are the basic numbers. So the greatest common factor is .
Example Question #81 : Integers
What's the greatest common factor of 19 and 27?
Greatest common factor is a common factor shared by two or more numbers. is a prime number. is a composite number. Since we have a prime and composite number, the greatest common factor is .
Example Question #81 : Integers
What's the greatest common factor of 24 and 74?
Greatest common factor is a common factor shared by two or more numbers. Both numbers are even, so let's divide two for both numbers. We get . We have one prime and one composite number, so we are finished. The greatest common factor is .
Example Question #81 : Integers
What's the greatest common factor of 18 and 243?
Greatest common factor is a common factor shared by two or more numbers. If you know the divisibility rule of (sum of digits are divisible by ), then the answer is just as the quotient is . We have a prime and composite number. However, if you don't and only know the divisibility rule of , then we can divide both numbers by to get . We do it once more to get . Since we divided twice by , we multiply these factors and this is our greatest common factor of . Our answer is .
Example Question #8 : How To Find The Greatest Common Factor
What's the greatest common factor of 33 and 121?
Greatest common factor is a common factor shared by two or more numbers. If you know divisibility rule of , then this is the answer. However, this isn't easy to spot, so we will do process of elimination. The numbers are odd and if we have even factors, we never generate odd numbers so is wrong. Next, check divisibility rule of . The digits of add to which isn't divisible by so is wrong. Next, let's divide into . We get a decimal value and that's wrong since if we consider to be a multiple of , it should be a whole number and not a decimal. Finally, by dividing and , it's also . This is our answer. To find out if is divisible by , just add the outside digits and match the middle one. Since it does, is divisible by .
Example Question #3 : Greatest Common Factor
What's the greatest common factor of 55 and 80?
These two numbers are definitely divisible by . When we divide both numbers by , we get and remaining. Since we have a combination of a prime and composite number, then we can't find any more factors. Our answer is .
Example Question #81 : Integers
What's the greatest common factor of 81 and 27?
Let's do some divisibility rules. For , the sum of the digits must be divisible by .
We have:
They are both good so when we divide both numbers by , we get . Lastly they are both divisible by . So we multiply both factors to get an answer of .
Example Question #11 : How To Find The Greatest Common Factor
What's the greatest common factor of 2, 6, 9, and 10?
Greatest common factor involves all the numbers in the set. Even though three of the numbers are divisble by , isn't. The only factor that satisfies all the numbers is .