<p>I took the class as a senior (wanted all APs, but didn’t want them to all be ridiculously hard) and had a very good teacher. I did almost no studying out of class besides cramming on the morning of the test. Despite the fact that I was unable to identify the Netherlands on a map of Europe (whoops!), I got a 5 (which I’ll get 3 college credits for), as did about half my class. The other half had a few 4s and a few 3s and a few who didn’t take it. I think one girl got a 2, but she was a freshman and shouldn’t have been in the class.
However, 30% of people who took the exam got 1s, which is the highest rate among non-STEM classes and the 4th highest overall. I’ve seen lots of people on the interwebs saying they thought it was easy and that they did well, but ended up failing. I guess my point is that if you do self-study, make sure you test yourself with released exams and all previous essays and be wary of how confident you are.</p>