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:
98 x 98 x 98 x 98 x ... (for a total of 80 times) = 1986488500820409389805063477083716948651427892995252675718809274728565181515571149066749336250587351311170938162123289765801109753793758859462687126289620402176
Therefore, 98 to the power of 80 is 1986488500820409389805063477083716948651427892995252675718809274728565181515571149066749336250587351311170938162123289765801109753793758859462687126289620402176.