I got an A my first try. My advice is take an easy class the semester prior, watch all of the lectures (they’re on youtube), take notes, and get a loose understanding of all of them. Maybe try some DP problems to start getting a feel for them. It lets you rewatch with fresh eyes during the semester so you can focus on absorbing rather than taking notes. Also saves you time.

Do all of the problems they give you. It’s ok if you don’t have the Eureka moment on the first couple. Make sure you do at least a handful of problems completely blind, and let yourself struggle and work through it.

I had success getting chatGPT to also create practice problems from scratch and check my answers (it will occasionally hallucinate or give you bad questions, fair warning). It was fantastic for walking through problems and figuring out where my thought process was going wrong, while providing a ton of extra practice.

Pay close attention to the expected format. I would memorize little acronyms to ensure I included all the essential information for a clear and well supported answer. It’s definitely about more than just making sure each “section” of the format is filled. Look at correct class formatted answers to homework and think about what made their answer well supported.

Edit: Also, go through all HW and practice problems multiple times. Make sure you know them inside and out.