A few words of wisdom to help you succeed through this semester. First, mke sure you attend lecture. The survival guide is there to direct you through the lectures, but is not everything. On top of attending class, keep up with ALL of the readings. If you keep up with that, you should stay pretty well caught up.
Diagrams help a lot in lab.
Third, whether or not you did great or terrible on an exam, visit your professor to see what you did wrong. That way you know exactly what to do and how to study for the next exam. Fourth and finally, study a little bit each day. I couldn't stress this enough. With this, make sure you complete all of the worksheets in the survival guide and make sure you review the previous material as well as the new.