[Math] Why I do not need weighted average if the sum of weights equals 1

average

I am a bit confused here: I have 10 tasks, each of which has a scale associated (importance) and a final score. The sum of scales is 100%. To get the overall score, I would expect to calculate a weighted average as individual tasks have different weights. But apparently, it is enough to simply multiply the scores by their weights and sum it up.

Why is that? What would have to be different so that I must use weighted average?

Best Answer

Because dividing by $1$ doesn't do anything, so you might as well not do it. If the weights didn't add to $1$, you would have to divide by their sum, but in this special case you don't have to. If you really want to, you can, of course.