Transfer of midterm weight to final exam weight

[Fakesmile]

I've had some profs who had this policy in the past. For example, if midterm were 20% and final 40% and if you do better on the final than midterm, then all of the midterm weight is automatically transferred to the final to make it 60%. But if you did better on the midterm, then you stay with the initial weights (20% midterm and 40% final). Of course, the final should be cumulative, otherwise the policy wouldn't be fair.
I'm taking a course right now and I bombed its midterm. The prof for this course didn't mention the transferring policy in the beginning, but I'm thinking of asking the prof to consider it since it will motivate those of us who did poorly on the midterm to work hard until the end. Has any of you ever made such a request to the prof and the prof agreed?

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[da8s0859q]

I've had some profs who had this policy in the past. For example, if midterm were 20% and final 40% and if you do better on the final than midterm, then all of the midterm weight is automatically transferred to the final to make it 60%. But if you did better on the midterm, then you stay with the initial weights (20% midterm and 40% final). Of course, the final should be cumulative, otherwise the policy wouldn't be fair.
I'm taking a course right now and I bombed its midterm. The prof for this course didn't mention the transferring policy in the beginning, but I'm thinking of asking the prof to consider it since it will motivate those of us who did poorly on the midterm to work hard until the end. Has any of you ever made such a request to the prof and the prof agreed?

I don't mean this to be crass, but I think it's almost -- almost -- obnoxious to ask a professor such a question completely unprovoked. What were the statistics on the exam? Do they warrant that kind of grading scheme adjustment for the sake of maintaining reasonable scores in the course?

The closest thing I've seen to this is a prof who said, "okay, if you make an A on this final, you get an A in the class." Or so I was told, anyway. Wasn't there.

 

[wishfor]

edited

 

[Fakesmile]

I don't mean this to be crass, but I think it's almost -- almost -- obnoxious to ask a professor such a question completely unprovoked. What were the statistics on the exam? Do they warrant that kind of grading scheme adjustment for the sake of maintaining reasonable scores in the course?

That's why I'm hesitating to even ask this to the prof in the first place. It's even harder to mention it to the prof because I was the only attendant to her office hours throughout the first half of the course until the midterm and she has good opinion of me.
The statistics aren't posted yet and I don't know if they allow such a policy to maintain certain scores in the course. But as I said, some courses I took in the past were like this, though I don't know if this were to maintain certain scores in those courses.

The closest thing I've seen to this is a prof who said, "okay, if you make an A on this final, you get an A in the class." Or so I was told, anyway. Wasn't there.

That would be even better than the weight-transferring policy.

 

[snorlax]

Some professors hate it and will hate you if they sense you are trying to tell them how to deal with grades. I've seen this happen before. After seeing this happen, I would never try it myself.