At first glance, this might seem like an impossible problem because the number $7^{2011}$ is much too large to evaluate even with a calculator. It requires a starting point, and, to many, such a starting point might not be obvious. Students who successfully answer this problem must "look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning" (MP8), and so the purpose of this task is to give students an opportunity to engage in MP8 and to practice working with positive integer exponents. There are two key steps involved in the solving this problem: Aligns with 6.EE.A.1.