[avasylev]

From my own experience as student, having only final test matter, removes the motivation for doing work during the semester and only preping last month/weeks before the test. Which is not as good learning as putting work thru the whole semester. The earlier assignments/tests/projects are covering only chunks of materical, which students supposed to learn in incremetns as they progress thru semester. If student is getting Ds thru all incremental steps, they are not magically getting A at the final test.

[mpalmer]

So maybe there's an approach that weights earlier grades heavier if and only if the final exam grade falls short? E.g. if I get an A on the final, the C average I've maintained until that point matters less to my overall grade for the semester.

No system is perfect and there will be inadvertent and undesirable incentives to underperform one way or another, but I like the idea of a system that focuses on rewarding improvement.

[tenaciousDaniel]

That's a good point