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:
52 x 52 x 52 x 52 x ... (for a total of 74 times) = 9643782987916433752368343333181883568043080440299897993391899779198460061304952243221436073364033067614995555057684334388445184
Therefore, 52 to the power of 74 is 9643782987916433752368343333181883568043080440299897993391899779198460061304952243221436073364033067614995555057684334388445184.