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How to find the greatest common factor (GCF)
The Greatest Common Factor (GCF) is the largest positive integer that
is a factor of two or more numbers. Look at the examples below to see
how to find the Greatest Common Factor.
What is the Greatest Common Factor of 16 and 20?
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What are the factors of 16?
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1 , 2 , 4 , 8 , 16 |
What are the factors of 20?
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1 , 2 , 4 , 5 , 10 , 20 |
| What are the factors are common (What are factors
of both 16 and 20?) |
1 , 2 , 4 |
| The Greatest Common Factor is .... |
4 |
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Here is another example of finding the Greatest Common Factor
What is the Greatest Common Factor of 12 and 42?
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What are the factors of 12 ?
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1 , 2 , 3, 4 , 6 , 12 |
What are the factors of 42 ?
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1 , 2 , 3 , 6 , 7 , 14 , 21 , 42 |
| What are the factors are common (What are factors
of both 12 and 42 ?) |
1 , 2 , 3 , 6 |
| The Greatest Common Factor is .... |
6 |
Solving problems using Greatest Common Factor
The example below shows how we can use GCF to solve problems.
Problem: We have three drums that are full of water. One
contains 12 liters, one containers 15 liters and the other
24 liters.
We want to fill containers with all the water from the three
drums.
All the containers are to be the same size. What is the
largest size that the containers can be?
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We need to find the Greatest Common Factor of 12 , 15 ,
and 24 because that number will be the largest size that the
containers can be.
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What are the factors of 12 ?
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1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 6 , 12 |
What are the factors of 15 ?
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1 , 3 , 5 , 15 |
What are the factors of 24 ?
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1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 6 , 8 , 12 , 24 |
| What are the factors are common (What are factors
of 12 , 15 , and 24 ?) |
1 and 3 |
| The largest the containers can be is the same as
the Greatest Common Factor and is .... |
3 |
Greatest Common Factor Worksheets
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Greatest
Common Factors (1 of 2)