[Tsuwabuki]

Japanese for Busy People is what the other native English teachers in my municipality used to pass JLPT 2, so I presume it will work for you if the AP test is rated as less difficult than level 2. Take it from me though, there's no way you can get to that level by May.

I study four hours every day and have since May of 2008, and I could maybe pass level 3, but I haven't bothered trying because I have my own method of learning (I'm interested in using myself as a linguistic guinea pig, and I am trying to keep my learning as close to how Japanese children learn, including vocabulary, kanji order, etc, which is NOT how most gaikokujin learn Japanese). If I studied according to the surefire pass method, I'd mess up my own research.

Anime is not as useless as some people say it is. Once you have a decent command of the basics of the language, watching anime can indeed allow you to learn a lot of slang and less than polite Japanese that may come in useful later (although won't let you pass the the tests!). I have a few key phrases I use when my kids start getting a bit too out of control, and I learned them from anime (but they, of course, are used in actual life).