Q. Find the highest common factor of 12 and 15.


A. Write out all of the factors, that is all of the numbers that go exactly into each number and make 2 parallel lists.


The factors of 12 are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12

The factors of 15 are: 1, 3, 5 and 15


The numbers that appear in each list are 1 and 3, but the largest is number 3 which is therefore the highest common factor.


Q. Using prime factorisation and a Venn diagram representation, find the HCF and LCM of 15, 21 and 28:


A. Using prime factor trees (not shown here), look for the primes of each number:



As there is NO HCF shown, the declared HCF would be 1, as ANY number has 1 as a common factor.


The LCM in this case is:




Q. Using prime factorisation and a Venn diagram representation, find the HCF and LCM of 36, 58 and 86:


A. Using prime factor trees (not shown here), look for the primes of each number:


The HCF in this case is 2


The LCM in this case is:

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