A Test for Divisibility by Primes

Many people a re interested in divisibility rules, particularly since they can be coordinated with calculator activities. For example, young student can use calculator to gather data, examine the data for patterns, and discover some divisibility rules on their own. (See Bitter and Mikesell 1980; Rey et al. 1979.) Generally, calculator afford a quick way to determine if a number is divisible by a certain prime. Divisibility rules are particlarly useful when the number being tested for divisibility is too large for a calculator to handle exactly.