Factors of a negative number

[madhujeya]

What is the value of integer x?

(1)x has exactly 2 factors.
(2) When x is divided by 2, the remainder is 0.

In this question, for the statement 1, it stated that x has exactly two factors, so it's is known that x is prime.
And because of the second statement, we can come to a conclusion that the value of x is 2.

My doubt is why can't x be -2? because -2 also satisfies both the statements.

Thanks,
madhujeya

[jlucero]

Your line of thinking is smart here- think of the exceptions to a question like this. However, I doubt you got this question from an official source, because the OG (and our strategy guides) are very careful to mention positive integers. If this were an official question, it would probably be worded as: "What is the value of positive integer x?" and "(1)x has exactly 2 positive factors."

Takeaways:
1) Good job on thinking about exceptions here
2) The real test would do a better job wording this question
3) Know that the real test doesn't test negative factors. So even though the question/statements would be better worded than here, you (probably- 99% unlikely) don't need to worry about this on test day for questions dealing with divisibility or factors