Mo2men wrote:DavidG@VeritasPrep wrote:
Always take the prompt literally. 3^2 = 9, which isn't prime. In other words, because an exponent > 1 would make the factor non-prime, you'd ignore it.
Dear David,
Thanks for your reply.
I might find my confusion but I need your support.
Is the meaning different in case the stem says '
greatest prime number' instead of '
greatest prime factors'
My understanding is that, for example' 12 = 2 ^2 * 3. We say that 2 & 3 are prime factors of 12. We do not ignore 2 as prime number just because it is raised to power 2.
Thanks in advance
Well, I'm not sure if there's any reasonable way to reword the stem without using a term such as "factor" or "divisor" but it might be helpful to think about it like this:
Take your analysis of 12. We could look at the prime factorization, 2^2 * 3, in which case the prime bases - and therefore the prime factors - are 2 and 3. (And note that the remaining factors can be assembled using those bases. 4 = 2^2; 6 = 2*3, etc.) Or we could look at the list of all the factors of 12: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12, and see that the only prime factors are 2 and 3. Either method would be a reasonable way to arrive at the conclusion that 12 has two prime factors and that the largest prime factor is 3.
