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:
85 x 85 x 85 x 85 x ... (for a total of 64 times) = 3039563674866725366216700431136500455038221930406808846390168104209843587706907906166586830210007974528707563877105712890625
Therefore, 85 to the power of 64 is 3039563674866725366216700431136500455038221930406808846390168104209843587706907906166586830210007974528707563877105712890625.

