How to recognize a finitely generated abelian group as a product of cyclic groups.

As noted by SpamIAm, the key to this will be the Smith normal form of a matrix. Basically, we write $N$ as the image of a matrix and then find an easier, similar matrix for which the solution is clearer.

Since we have 2 generators for $N$ we have a surjective homomorphism $\mathbb{Z}^2\to N$ given by the matrix $A$ of generators for $N$: $$A=\begin{pmatrix}6&0\\0&0\\-3&8\\0&4\\3&2\end{pmatrix}$$ and $N=A\mathbb{Z}^2$. Now, this matrix its self is kind of messy, but it turns out that we can use a similar matrix and if we use a simple enough matrix the problem becomes easier.

Now you find the Smith normal form by using row and column operations to simplify as much as possible. I got the following matrix but you should check my work yourself: $$A=\begin{pmatrix}6&0\\0&0\\-3&8\\0&4\\3&2\end{pmatrix} \sim\begin{pmatrix}3&2\\0&0\\-3&8\\0&4\\6&0\end{pmatrix} \sim\begin{pmatrix}1&2\\0&0\\-11&8\\-4&4\\6&0\end{pmatrix} \sim\begin{pmatrix}1&0\\0&0\\0&30\\0&12\\0&-12\end{pmatrix} \sim\begin{pmatrix}1&0\\0&6\\0&0\\0&0\\0&0\end{pmatrix}=A'$$ Now we have $\mathbb{Z}^5/N=\mathbb{Z}^5/(A\mathbb{Z}^2)\cong\mathbb{Z}^5/(A'\mathbb{Z}^2)$. But it should be easy to see that $A'\mathbb{Z}^2=\mathbb{Z}\times(6\mathbb{Z})$ which gives us $$G\cong \dfrac{\mathbb{Z}^5}{\mathbb{Z}\times(6\mathbb{Z})}=\mathbb{Z}^3\times\mathbb{Z}_6$$


kaiten has already provided a good answer to your question, so I just want to make some remarks about the general theory and show why computation of the Smith normal form gives the desired answer.

Given a free module $M$ with rank $n < \infty$ over a PID $R$, every submodule $N \leq M$ is also free of finite rank. Moreover, there is a basis $y_1, \ldots, y_n$ of $M$ and scalars $a_1, \ldots, a_m \in R$ such that $a_1 \mid \cdots \mid a_m$ and $a_1 y_1, \ldots, a_m y_m$ is a basis of $N$. This is what Keith Conrad calls an aligned basis. This blurb of his has some great pictures illustrating aligned vs. unaligned bases which I've copied below.

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Once we've found an aligned basis, writing $M/N$ as a direct sum of cyclic $R$-modules is easy: \begin{align} \frac{M}{N} &= \frac{Ry_1 \oplus \cdots \oplus Ry_m \oplus \cdots \oplus Ry_n}{Ra_1 y_1 \oplus \cdots \oplus Ra_m y_m} \cong \frac{Ry_1}{Ra_1 y_1} \oplus \cdots \oplus \frac{Ry_m}{Ra_m y_m} \oplus R y_{m+1} \oplus \cdots \oplus R y_n\\ &\cong \frac{R}{a_1 R} \oplus \cdots \oplus \frac{R}{a_m R} \oplus R^{n-m} \tag{1} \end{align}

Okay, so how do we find an aligned basis and compute scalars $a_1, \ldots, a_m$? As I mentioned in my comment, this can be achieved by computing the Smith normal form of the matrix of the homomorphism \begin{align*} \varphi: \mathbb{Z}^2 &\to \mathbb{Z}^5 = M\\ \begin{pmatrix} 1\\ 0\end{pmatrix}, \begin{pmatrix} 0\\ 1\end{pmatrix} &\mapsto \begin{pmatrix}6\\0\\-3\\0\\3\end{pmatrix}, \begin{pmatrix}0\\0\\8\\4\\2\end{pmatrix} \end{align*} which has matrix $$ A=\begin{pmatrix}6&0\\0&0\\-3&8\\0&4\\3&2\end{pmatrix} $$ with respect to the standard bases for $\mathbb{Z}^2$ and $\mathbb{Z}^5$. The Smith normal form might seem strange, but really it's just a version of performing a change of basis like in linear algebra. As kaiten showed, by performing row and column operations, we can turn $A$ into a diagonal matrix $D$. Recall that a row (resp. column) operation can be achieved by multiplying $A$ on the left (resp. right) by an elementary matrix $E$. (Simply apply the same row or column operation to the identity matrix to determine $E$.) Multiplying these elementary matrices together yields invertible matrices $P$ and $Q$ such that $PAQ = D$ is a diagonal matrix. In your example, we have \begin{align*} PAQ = \left(\begin{array}{rrrrr} 0 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 1 \\ -1 & 0 & 1 & -3 & -1 \\ -3 & 0 & -4 & 7 & 2 \\ -1 & 0 & -2 & 4 & 0 \\ 0 & 1 & 0 & 0 & 0 \end{array}\right) \begin{pmatrix}6&0\\0&0\\-3&8\\0&4\\3&2\end{pmatrix} \left(\begin{array}{rr} -1 & -2 \\ 2 & 3 \end{array}\right) = \left(\begin{array}{rr} 1 & 0 \\ 0 & 6 \\ 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 \end{array}\right) = D \, . \end{align*} What do these row and column operations mean? They correspond to new choices of basis for $\mathbb{Z}^2$ and $\mathbb{Z}^5$ such that $\varphi$ can be written particularly simply. More explicitly, since $P$ and $Q$ are invertible, they are change of basis matrices for some bases we seek to determine. Writing $Q = {_{\mathcal{E}}[\text{id}]_\mathcal{B}}$ (where $\mathcal{E} = \{e_1, e_2\}$ is the standard basis for $\mathbb{Z}^2$), by the definition of the matrix of a linear map, we see that $\mathcal{B} = \{x_1 = -e_1 + 2e_2, x_2 = -2e_1 + 3e_2\}$. Similarly, by computing $$ P^{-1} = \left(\begin{array}{rrrrr} -6 & -2 & 2 & -5 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 1 \\ 19 & 5 & -7 & 16 & 0 \\ 8 & 2 & -3 & 7 & 0 \\ 1 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0 \end{array}\right) $$ we see that $P = {_\mathcal{C}[\text{id}]_\mathcal{F}}$ (where $\mathcal{F} = \{f_1, \ldots, f_5\}$ is the standard basis for $\mathbb{Z}^5$) for the basis \begin{align*} \mathcal{C} = \{y_1 &= -6f_1 + 19 f_3 + 8 f_4 + f_5,\\ y_2 &= -2 f_1 + 5f_3 + 2f_4,\\ y_3 &= 2 f_1 -7 f_3 -3 f_4,\\ y_4 &= -5 f_1 + 16 f_3 + 7 f_4,\\ y_5 &= f_2 \}\, . \end{align*} You can check that $\varphi(x_1) = y_1$ and $\varphi(x_2) = 6y_2$, which verifies that $N = \text{img}(\varphi) = \mathbb{Z}y_1 \oplus \mathbb{Z} 6y_2$. Then $(1)$ gives $M/N \cong \mathbb{Z}^3 \oplus \mathbb{Z}/6\mathbb{Z}$, which agrees with answer given by kaiten.