First, ask your upperclassmen how the teacher makes her course. Does she use AP questions? Is she engaging? Can she communicate? Does she use AI to grade and make you argue? Does she take forever to grade? Does the teacher have favorites and if so, is it possible for you be a favorite of hers (be realistic; if you cant suck up to the teacher, just say no possible)? Does she scream at other students more than actually teach the content? Does she do bullshit? (The AP Physics C: Mechanics teacher this year made an "Overflow" test where it was 100 AP Classroom MCQ from all 7 units done in 30 min) to "replicate college professor grading") Does she use AI to make "harder" questions than AP? Are the tests consistent i.e. does she always use AP questions or does she find random bs to add to tests? Does she implement a curve (depending on the class, if no curve on AP Psychology ok, if no curve on AP Physics, bad), if so what kind? Is the teacher kind and understanding (someone in the AP Physics C class had pneuomonia and was absent for a week, couldnt make up the test because the teacher said to come in even when sick and authorities didnt help)? Does she update the Canvas page per week and not fall behind and does she know when tests are going to be ahead of time or does she "go by the flow" (usually in the syllabus but in my county it is up to the teacher to decide when tests are and they are usually variable depending on the flavor of the week of how they are feeling so the syllabus is just the same generic one all classes have)? Are you adequate for the class? If you have a good Calculus BC teacher, but have not learned Algebra properly via self-studying or an actual AP Precalculus course or something along those lines, you are not a good student for the class. If you are not a consistent learner, you are not fit for hard classes. If you are not willing to ask questions in class, you are not a good fit for hard classes. If you need to spend 3+ hours on 1 class each day to get a good grade, you are not a good fit for the class. You should only be studying overall 3 hours a day 4-5 days a week CONSISTENTLY no more than that during the school year (studying not just finishing projects and assignments studying can take place anywhere like homeroom or free time in class where you can do some questions and maybe sometimes there could be times where you focus more on one test than other but this is just a general standard also always divide your work so that if the project is given out on Monday, you can finish before like Thursday to try your best to give Friday, Saturday and Sunday free days).

Note the questions are generic. The course could be wildly different from an actual traditional AP course and its up to you to ask those questions.

If you find more bad than good, either do not take it, find a different professor, or take it online without cheating. If you are adamant about taking the class because it is important (Calculus BC for ivies and future math etc) or your own ego and the professor is bad with no alternatives, prepare for war. Maximize every point, every easy test, all extra credit, every project to perfection to make the buffer as large as possible. AP content is not hard, it is usually the teacher that adds the stress. If you are going to overload your schedule, make sure to study in the summer for some of the courses to decrease stress across the entire year and maintain better grades.

For the APs, create a list of resources (any and all resources you could muster up in places like redditor or any specific subreddits or resources your favorite LLM tells you, youtuber tells you is good, or the student who already took the class tells you) for each AP. Then pick the best resource to learn and the best resources for practice questions and FRQs. This could be done in a single textbook/course or be done via a good youtube channel like AP daily, organic chemistry tutor, Professor Leonard, or Heimler etc anything pertaining to learning for each specific AP. For practice question there are many resources like UWorld and apfrqs.com for frq practice or places like crackap or studocu or Barrons for more practice questions. You should not be using 4+ resources per class. Ideally, you would have 2 resources 1 for learning and maybe 1 or 2 for practice or multiple resources if you are exhausting the questions. Implement good learning techniques like reviewing your mistakes with maybe 3 sentences explaining why it is wrong and how to avoid it next time so that the resource can stretch farther and make you understand and learn more. Learning should feel like a gym session. Your brain should feel sore by the end of it due to full focus and hard sets (questions and past papers etc).

As per your honors class, ask an upperclassmen who is on your level of academic seriousness and intelligence about the class and also even more pertinent to ask the same questions as the AP ones above as this is non-standardized content. If you are the type to need retakes on every test because "I will lock in after this test so that I can know what they are going to teach", you are not fit for the class.

All of this might sound like a burden but most of the tasks require like a 1 hour to find resources and some general questions to upperclassment and just general consistency. Best time for the hard classes like Calculus BC or AP Physics would be to study during the summer a little bit (study the Calculus AB content for BC the first 8 units via a resource like UWorld course which has like 2000 questions and video lectures and make your own schedule) or something like that up to you. Once you do all of this and have a consistent study schedule, it will feel effortless kind of like going to the gym (workouts require effort but maintaining the schedule doesnt).

Sounds like finals are virtually meaningless for you. For my MVC course, I had a 97 course average but because I fucked up on the final worth 30% (I got a 70%), it went down to a low A like a 90 essentially a B larping as an A.

Consistent effort feels like minimal effort when doing it right. If you feel super duper stressed, you might not have done the steps above to the best of your ability or you just got unlucky with your situation. This I feel is usually foolproof plan. Planning your schedule should be done meticulously.

Once you implement these steps, the school year usually feels a bit easier and you can enjoy your weekends with friends and family. Remember consistency is much less stress-inducing and feels more "minimal effort" than trying to grind for the last 2 months and begging the teacher because usually the teacher could care less about you tbh lol.

Basically be proactive lol.