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 98 times) = 505393856152681062400676471696206114185835788875289576999182901562607116911298634737323985865477158145547702458287131008628368477710207497245406763983690564011440571010564906179728023113117239489
Therefore, 97 to the power of 98 is 505393856152681062400676471696206114185835788875289576999182901562607116911298634737323985865477158145547702458287131008628368477710207497245406763983690564011440571010564906179728023113117239489.