In the "Multiplying binomials" video, Sal talks about forgetting the FOIL acronym/mnemonic when you are 35 or 45 years old as one reason for the importance of understanding what is actually going on with binomial multiplication. Well, I had a chuckle over that because I'm 67, found math horrendously difficult in elementary and high school, failed math countless times and forgot the vast majority of it. But the one thing I never forgot was FOIL! Irony of ironies :-)
I'm 68 going on 69, but I never learned FOIL in school way back when. Then again, math was a subject I was good in, so I may not have needed it. I first heard of it when I did an algebra review on Khan Academy in preparation for science and more advanced math courses here.
Well, first of all no matter your age you should learn things. In this case you have chosen math and I think there are not many other choices which are better than this one. Having said that, in my humble opinion, acronyms or other nmothecnic rules are extremely stupid. You should understand the mathematics behind, no matter if you have a simple reasoning. I know that there's not many rigorous and understandable justifications behind elementary maths, but that's what I try to accomplish everyday. It's better to understand how the cosine is a relation between the adjacent and hypotenuse of a right triangle, and more extended to a whole unit circle than knowing that nmotechnically is called CAH. So that's my recommendation, specially because you will no longer have to memorize but deduct and moreover because further in your mathematical education that type of stupid things won't help anymore. Good luck.
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