IS 1 A DISTINCT FACTOR?

[yogami]

I was taking manhattan gmat and i came across a question whose explanation said that any number N has even number of distinct factors if it is not a perfect square.
For instance factors of 24 are 1,2,3,4,6,8,12,24 which is even. Try it any non-perfect square number and it will be even. My question is whether 1 should be considered a factor???

[BlindVision]

That's a good question. The number 1 is a factor because by definition, a factor is a positive integer that divides evenly into an integer. Hope that helps!