Decrease by a factor means to ______.

Decrease by a factor means to ______.

• A. Multiply
• B. Add
• C. Subtract
• D. Divide

Answer: (D)

Decreasing by a factor means shrinking the quantity by a scaling amount, which is done by dividing by that factor. For example, if you have 80 and decrease by a factor of 4, you divide 80 by 4 to get 20. This is different from adding or subtracting a fixed amount, which changes the value by a constant difference rather than scaling it. Multiplying by a factor (especially greater than 1) would increase the size, not decrease. So the operation that produces the smaller result when you’re talking about a decrease by a factor is division by that factor.

Decreasing by a factor means shrinking the quantity by a scaling amount, which is done by dividing by that factor. For example, if you have 80 and decrease by a factor of 4, you divide 80 by 4 to get 20. This is different from adding or subtracting a fixed amount, which changes the value by a constant difference rather than scaling it. Multiplying by a factor (especially greater than 1) would increase the size, not decrease. So the operation that produces the smaller result when you’re talking about a decrease by a factor is division by that factor.