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:
55 x 55 x 55 x 55 x ... (for a total of 85 times) = 8527635070910655751646584672828810666447655674512139026525375220900891199321217441993644323747537918807538025178782703505930840037763118743896484375
Therefore, 55 to the power of 85 is 8527635070910655751646584672828810666447655674512139026525375220900891199321217441993644323747537918807538025178782703505930840037763118743896484375.

