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 96 times) = 148157147579388574820480446792232934314634339696235611739635981478382244939108577021373434154820450402807730943294739092477399457162114620666881
Therefore, 31 to the power of 96 is 148157147579388574820480446792232934314634339696235611739635981478382244939108577021373434154820450402807730943294739092477399457162114620666881.