Your scenario is easy to do in one’s head, because it is a simple average weighting of only two scores. The difference between the two scores is 10 points; weighting that difference would mean the lower score plus 60% of the difference, or 6 points added to the 85 score. But a true weighting over time of multiple scores would be more difficult to do in one’s head. Suppose, over a course, you weighted scores as follows: Three quizzes count for 15% each. A mid term counts for 20%. The final counts for 35%. It is still easy to calculate the average, but takes a bit more than doing it in one’s head.