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 96 times) = 143781584887701660834747168185371691678113713628355855692704034073688200715388695669617659458927178916132442740269126530250157572662047408162478422569300319694963453407183302103769511452737536
Therefore, 98 to the power of 96 is 143781584887701660834747168185371691678113713628355855692704034073688200715388695669617659458927178916132442740269126530250157572662047408162478422569300319694963453407183302103769511452737536.