Introduction

If you're new to the world of competitive programming, you may have noticed that some questions have this funny habit of asking you to calculate a huge number, then tell you that "because this number can be huge, please output it modulo $$$10^9 + 7$$$". Like, it's not enough that they ask you to calculate a number they know will overflow basic integer data types, but now you need to apply the modulo operation after that? Even worse are those that say you need to calculate a fraction $$$\frac pq$$$ and ask you to output $$$r$$$ where $$$r \cdot q = p \text{ mod } n$$$... not only do you have to calculate a fraction with huge numbers, how in the world are you going to find $$$r$$$?

Actually, the modulo is there to make the calculation easier, not harder. This may sound counterintuitive, but once you know how modular arithmetic works, you'll see that it doesn't work too differently from the math you learned in school.