Does the AP Physics 2 class at your high school assume past knowledge of Physics without it necessarily being a prerequisite? I’ve never heard of an AP Physics 2 class that starts from the ground up in terms of what students are expected to know.
Also, like skieurope said, at my high school, Honors Physics was entirely scrapped in favor of AP Physics 1 + 2. For some reason, AP Physics 1 actually has less strict prerequisites than Honors did, and most kids at my HS seem to have failed the exam.