<p>Adding on to what hpysm said, make sure you learn trigonometry before you even think about doing AP Calculus BC. In reality, it isn’t the calculus that a lot of my classmates fail at; they easily understand the calculus, but it’s the algebra and trigonometry skills that lack in order to do the calculus. And I’m talking about people who actually took Algebra II and Pre-Calculus. Sadly, the classes who should take in order to prepare for AP Calculus really don’t prepare you very well; that’s one of the major flaws of math education in this country (especially in public schools). The moral of the story is that you need to know your algebra very well and trigonometry to a good extent, and you’ll easily understand the calculus if you just do your homework.</p>