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:
38 x 38 x 38 x 38 x ... (for a total of 88 times) = 10494373146819960690376617915582807711408157736744605465184377308741784762286123825842427574343971330669665199374092981760622883397693341696
Therefore, 38 to the power of 88 is 10494373146819960690376617915582807711408157736744605465184377308741784762286123825842427574343971330669665199374092981760622883397693341696.