Assessment: final exam weight

The NASA Center for Astronomy Education (CAE) hosts a listserver discussing astronomy teaching and learning, moderated by Gina Brissenden. Recent posting:

...Is telling your students "one blaze of effort at the end is all you really need to pass a college class" a message we should be sending? Especially if these will be future teachers? My finals are worth no more than any other test. The good news is students get to drop a test. So my best students never take the final.
-- Liam McDaid, Sacramento City College

In Astronomy 10 (introductory astronomy, general education) at Cuesta College, the Final Exam is weighted no more than the midterms (but no exams are dropped), and a single exam (75 points) is worth less than a letter grade jump (100 points). This means that students are highly motivated to continuously keep up with the material during the semester as opposed to the "blaze of effort at the end," as their letter grade will nearly be pre-determined by the end of the semester, as the Final Exam can only raise their letter grade if they reasonably close to a cut-off.

Typically the top student in the class does not need to take the Final Exam, having already earned an "A" grade by the last week of class. Over the past four years, two pre-final "A" students have taken the Final Exam even though it would not raise their grade any further (Cuesta College has no +/- grades) probably to see if they could get more than the maximum 600 points (which they did).