<p>Please just chill out! A 39/40 on an in-class test for an AP class is pretty decent (i would say amazing, but somehow I don't think you'd buy it).</p>
<p>I totally know how you feel: I'm guessing you're one of those ppl who feel like every other class up to now has been ridiculously easy, almost to the point of boring. Getting anything below 100% is generally considered some sort of grave failure because it shows you don't know everything. </p>
<p>I used to feel that way until my first AP class (AP Environmental Science). I remember for our very first chapter test ever I studied a lot, I read the entire chapter and then I even memorized every slide of our teacher's powerpoint of notes (about 25-30ish slides with a bunch of text and specific numbers). </p>
<p>I ended up getting a 14/16 on the test, and I was incredibly shocked. I'm pretty sure I almost went home in tears. When we got the tests back, I realized I had misread two questions, and I put down the exact opposite answers (which shows I knew the material, but just didn't read the questions right). </p>
<p>I was pretty devastated, but luckily I realized it was time to change my studying strategies. For me personally, the best way to study for AP classes is to read the textbook. You can take notes if you want, but try and limit your notes to no more than like 1/4 a page per textbook page and instead try to commit stuff to memory from the stat. </p>
<p>When you read a chapter in your textbook the first time, read it once in a very relaxed way, try to think of it as reading a story where you don't necessarily have to know every detail. Put it down, then come back to it (either in a few hours or a few days) and read it over. This time you'll see that everything makes a lot more sense from before, but once again, it is not crucial to remember everything. Then the night before or the day of a test, read over the text one last time. You'll be amazed at how much you remember. (Note: this strategy is only useful for AP classes that rely heavily on the textbook like history or APES. It does absolutely zilch for AP Calc or AP Physics. Plus as you take on more AP's, you won't have this much time to devote to any one class. Finding time to read over a chapter thrice is pretty much impossible.) But anyway, reading over the textbook this way really helped me understand stuff and do a lot better on tests. It fills in all the gaps that the teacher may not have time to go over in class. Of course this is the strategy that worked for me, it might not work for everyone or even anyone else.</p>
<p>And most importantly, keep in mind that it's incredibly unreasonable to expect to maintain a perfect 100% or even like a 98% average on your in-class tests in an AP class. On the actual AP exam, getting a 66.67% on most tests is a 5. No one person can know it all. So don't fret over every single thing you get wrong. Learn from your mistakes and remember them in the long run for the AP test, but know that if you're getting A's or even high B's now, you'll be all set to get at least a 4 if not a 5 on the real test (the one that counts way more than any silly chapter test) come May.</p>