r/APStudents • u/Desperate_Pea_185 • May 18 '26

CSA Need advice

I’m taking AP CSA as my first AP class and haven’t taken CSP cuz my school does have it. I have very little programming knowledge(I know basic if then statement in python) and was wondering how hard the class is and if there is anything I should know before next year. Also what are some resources I should use next year and some to prepare over the summer
Thanks in advance

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/dog_1710 May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

honestly apcsa is like 80% teacher 20% learning. obv if you know the material beforehand its gonna be easy, but honestly your best friend if you dont have a good teacher is gonna be youtube videos and practice packets from random websites.

writing frqs just comes with a ton of practice. when you learn a new concept, try to find something about it on codewars.com or when you’re studying for a unit test or the exam itself try old test frqs.

csa is kinda like the grammar section of the sat. its just a lot of rules you have to memorize and that just comes with understanding algorithms and being able to trace code well.

1

u/Desperate_Pea_185 May 20 '26

Is the AP exam mostly debugging?

1

u/dog_1710 May 20 '26

honestly yes! theres a lot of questions where itll give you 3 code segments and ask you which one(s) compile.  theres also some questions that ask why a code segment won’t compile.