If a student is a fast learner and can understand the material more quickly than their classmates for the first test it is reasonable to assume that the same wo

If a student is a fast learner and can understand the material more quickly than their classmates for the first test it is reasonable to assume that the same would be true for the final test as well. In practice I've found that many of the students who are at the top of the bell curve after the first test are the ones who have the most prior familiarity with the subject matter. Whereas the fast learners are typically the ones who are at the top of the curve at the end of the course. In this context, equally-weighting early grades has a higher probability of penalizing the fast learners than it does of rewarding them.