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:
78 x 78 x 78 x 78 x ... (for a total of 85 times) = 67304054671971450739989420306807619836799377985470716666894760506378032361691314076427140597397010589541943423481240405499752742660038542135357687606606894727168
Therefore, 78 to the power of 85 is 67304054671971450739989420306807619836799377985470716666894760506378032361691314076427140597397010589541943423481240405499752742660038542135357687606606894727168.