[closetnerd]

The source of about 30% of the hits I took in homework and tests was, to this day, not having memorized the basic values of Sin/Cos(pi, pi/2, pi/4).

[YZF]

Instead of memorizing the values you can learn the shape of the graphs and/or learn the meaning of sin/cos on a right angle triangle.

I think I got ok through a math/comp.sci. degree without memorizing values but I will say the "mechanical" aspects of math including trig functions and things like integrals and derivatives involve drilling those enough to make these things automatic (which is sort of memorizing but not exactly). I was always lazy so I never got really good at that (and my calculus related grades are evidence of that ;) ).

[philomath_mn]

Yeah I pretty much always think through the unit circle to get the value of sin(0) and cos(0) (unless I had been doing a lot of trig lately)

I remember drawing everything out on trig exams though and making myself an on-demand cheatsheet.

[sn9]

Here's an Anki deck for the unit circle: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1813562307