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:
97 x 97 x 97 x 97 x ... (for a total of 85 times) = 7509264686928820610499507056680600410882928800592877119390847371712299075247662494975545928181885871040515727440554329823753285438399467303295241682856073065583083071457
Therefore, 97 to the power of 85 is 7509264686928820610499507056680600410882928800592877119390847371712299075247662494975545928181885871040515727440554329823753285438399467303295241682856073065583083071457.