Why are end-of-semester exams made to be worth such a large fraction of grade weighting?

I've done courses where the final exam is worth up to half as much as all the rest of the course's content combined. Isn't that a little unfair to those who might have had an incomplete sleep, or an already otherwise unusually stressful day the day of the final, or any of these other unforeseen circumstances? I get wanting to create an incentive to keep students putting in the effort toward the very end, but can't exams be split into separate parts or something? Like, let's say, multiple choice one day, short answer a few days later, long answer a few days after that?

Submitted January 02, 2023 at 08:32PM by ContextEffects https://ift.tt/iVrvuat