If you pass the AP test, you can get college credit. If you don’t pass it, you just don’t get the credit. It won’t hurt you, except the college may use your test scores to help deteremine scholarships or something.

Also, if you pass it and get the college credit, you won’t have to take the class in college. That’s the point of AP tests. If you also take the class and get an A, then they’ll just use your AP credit as an elective.

Some schools accept the AP credit in lieu of courses, but that’s it – they give you that grade and you move on, or you retake the course – it’s not a combination. Other schools don’t accept AP courses for credit, but will let you use your AP tests to place out of intro level courses if you did well enough (or even took the course).