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:
86 x 86 x 86 x 86 x ... (for a total of 98 times) = 3809326709932017820026215288975173094809103559179449819926276650295682766789840391817318171493966012277444570336662451521408380686065803130989957093109575067494314012229204978431108900192256
Therefore, 86 to the power of 98 is 3809326709932017820026215288975173094809103559179449819926276650295682766789840391817318171493966012277444570336662451521408380686065803130989957093109575067494314012229204978431108900192256.