Question

Find the greatest common factor of the following monomial 6bc and 9b^2c

Answer 1

Both 6bc and 9b²c are multiples of the number 3bc - we can rewrite them as

3bc · 2 and 3bc · 3b

Since the two monomials share the factors 3, b and c, their greatest common factor is 3bc.

Answer 2

The greatest common factors would be the biggest number that goes into both of these monomial.

As we can see, they both have one b and one c. This is the largest number of b’s and c’s it can have, as it can’t be any bigger.

Also, the greatest common factor of 6 and 9 is 3.

So, the answer is 3bc.