hello
the prime factors of 40 and 56 are
[tex]\begin{gathered} 40=2,5 \\ 56=2,7 \end{gathered}[/tex]we can write out the factors of 40 and 56 i.e number that will divide both 40 and 56 without remainder
[tex]\begin{gathered} 40=1,2,4,5,8,10,20 \\ 56=1,2,4,7,8,14,28 \end{gathered}[/tex]the common factors are 1, 2 , 4 and 8 and the highest amongst them will give us the GCF and which is 8
the answer to the question is 8