@kjake2000 I’m a proponent of skipping as many classes as possible with the AP exams & scores. The first reason is it saves a semester’s worth of work which you can use to take other classes or fewer units. The more important reason is it’s not necessarily you have forgotten the concept/material of Calculus, but you simply haven’t been used to Berkeley’s style of exam questions. This can be addressed by taking plenty of past exams which is available not only in the math department website (https://math.berkeley.edu/courses/archives/exams) but also in various honor society websites such as TBP (https://tbp.berkeley.edu/courses/math/). Spend plenty of time ‘working backwards’ from the past exams and if you eventually understand every question, then there is a really good chance to ace it, whether you take 1A or 1B.
This is my opinion, but without understanding the ‘system’ such as mentioned above, and this has nothing to do with individual intellect, I don’t think taking Math 1A gives you any better chance of getting a good grade. If you happen to receive a ‘5’ on the BC exam, then I always advise go straight to 53, or straight to Physics 7B if you took Physics C exam and got a ‘5’, or whatever else you can skip out.