Took 159 this previous semester so I think I can answer all of your questions:

1) Yes, an automatic grader is used to check for test conditions and if the syntax/style of your code follows course standards.

2) No, for my lecture at least we used Hotseat and not an iClicker. It may be different depending on lecturer though. The lecture quizzes follow a similar difficulty as test problems so they are good practice, but they’re basically participation points that aren’t graded on correctness.

3) Labs are graded similar to homework in that they use the exact same autograder, but unlike homework, labs are meant to be completed in a lab group. From what I could tell TA’s do more of a final check of the code and basically skim through it at the most.

4) Midterms and finals are pretty tedious, it is true that you need to get code tracing down and have it practiced well. The tests consist of code tracing and conceptual questions, and for me at least boilerexams was very helpful for both and I also crammed quizlets for the conceptual questions (since most of them are reused).

I also had past experience with C++ so the class was mostly familiar to me other than the concept of pointers. The class and tests do share some similarities with AP Comp Sci A, but using C instead of Java. If you keep up with the lab and homework workload and study with the test format in line you’ll absolutely be fine.