<p>I think a dumb person who worked hard could do pretty well in APUSH, whereas a dumb person who worked hard in AP Chem might run into more difficulties. I took Chem 1 (or the equivalent–my school is weird), but my teacher kind of (really) sucked, so I could imagine doing AP Chem without the class, but you’d probably want to familiarize yourself briefly with some basic concepts.</p>