General advice
The most important thing to succeed in the class is to pay a lot of attention to the assignments. They lay the foundation for coding so it is essential to not just complete the assignments but understand why the answer is correct. Not understanding the basics can lead to a lot of problems later even if it doesn’t seem very important at the time. Fully understanding all the material taught also helps immensely with the create performance task at the end of the year. I would also recommend regularly reviewing or practicing coding with older concepts. By the time you get to doing the performance task, a lot of what you learned was done months ago. It takes a lot more time to do the code when you have to relearn things. Collaboration is also very important in the class. Classmates can help you understand material that is difficult and makes working on projects easier. Asking for help is also essential. It will help you understand the content to ask questions about anything that confuses or interests you.
Advice for the AP test
Create Performance Task
The performance task is worth a lot of points on the AP test so it is very important to do it properly. I would advise doing projects carefully and correctly throughout the year so you can use those for your performance task instead of having to write a whole new code. There is less pressure when you’re making the code for these projects and it makes it a whole lot easier when coding for the performance task. Using a previous project means you just have to modify the code a bit and make sure it fits the rubric. Paying attention to the rubric is also a very important part of the performance task. You have to make sure your code fits all the criteria of the rubric to be able to get the points for it and successfully answer the free response questions. If your code is missing something that the writing section asks a question about, there is basically no way for you to get the points for that question. Answering the questions is very simple when your code has all the elements necessary. You shouldn’t make the code too simple because that will make it difficult to answer the questions. Though you can technically make a simple code that just barely fits all the requirements and get away with it, it is better to have more code to work with just in case there is a question that asks about an element that your code does not have. Having a more in depth code also makes it so you’re not just writing the same thing for every question.
Multiple choice
As for the multiple choice, doing practice tests helped me a lot. A lot of the questions on the practice tests are very similar to the ones on the real AP tests. If you study and know the questions and how to get the correct answers, it is very possible to get a high score on the multiple choice. Doing well on the multiple choice can get you a passing score even if you completely fail the free response questions. In addition, the videos in AP classroom help with understanding the topics a lot. Even if it seems boring, setting aside time to watch the videos will improve your score on the test a lot. So, don’t put off studying for the exam until the last minute if you really do want to pass.
Workload
The amount of work given is not hard to keep up with as long as you are consistent with completing the work. Doing the recommended amount of work in class when doing the CodeHS assignments will help you keep on top of the work. It will stop you from getting overwhelmed and putting off work. Doing assignments in class just makes everything easier as you may forget about it or get too tired to do it once you’re home. If you get behind, the class will keep going with new content so you are only discrediting yourself. Always make sure to get the work done as quickly as possible.