The first step a math tutor would suggest is to understand what it means when a number has an exponent. The “power” of a number indicates how many times the base would be multiplied by itself to reach the correct value.
The second step is to write the number in the base-exponent form, and lastly calculate what the final result would be. Consider the example of 2 to the power of 4: in exponent form that would be
So re-applying these steps to our particular problem, we first convert our word problem to a base-exponent form of:
To simplify this, all that is needed is to multiply it out:
31 x 31 x 31 x 31 x ... (for a total of 81 times) = 6313892750521189714633754604994413292197190240839037074315851724033725212392516654405542803000048941544617736819182758431
Therefore, 31 to the power of 81 is 6313892750521189714633754604994413292197190240839037074315851724033725212392516654405542803000048941544617736819182758431.