[email protected] wrote:Hi aces021,

Most Quant questions that you'll face can be solved in a variety of ways. Prime Factorization is a method for re-organizing math "data"; it's not an approach that you'll use too often on Test Day, but you're likely to come across a couple of questions in which you MIGHT use Prime Factorization to get to the solution. That doesn't necessarily mean that you *need* to use Prime Factorization though.

Questions from the OG often focus on just one approach to answering the question (although sometimes the writers will offer a second approach). If you don't "like" the solution that's offered, chances are pretty good that there is another way to go about solving the question. Many of those approaches have been discussed on this site.

To answer your immediate questions: any time a prompt discusses factors or division, then Prime Factorization might be an option (in most cases it won't be the "best" or fastest option though).

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Thanks for your response. I ended up getting "PS204: If n=4p where p is a prime number greater than 2 how many different positive even divisors does n have, including n? " incorrect because I answered how many different positive prime factors there were NOT how many different positive factor pairs there were. I'm trying to figure out how the question alludes to factor pairs and not prime factors.