What is a common method for factoring?

Answer 1

If you know the prime factorization of a number, you can find out the total number of factors.
Example: 210
21 x 31 x 51 x 71 = 210
Add one to the exponents and multiply them.
2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16, the total number of factors.
You know that 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 are factors. You need three more to get halfway.
2 x 3 = 6
2 x 5 = 10
2 x 7 = 14
Divide all those numbers into 210.
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 14, 15, 21, 30, 35, 42, 70, 105, 210