Can some paraphrase this? ''He must study the Four Books, the Five Classics, other Confucian works, and know how to compose poems and write essays. Studying the 5 classics required memorization, but not much questioning.''

This one is a little complicated because I don't have any context, but here:

There won't be a huge amount of questions asked, but he (replace he with person's name) will need to memorize a lot from the books of Confucianism in order to write poems or essays.

a personal narrative essay is about a personal experience, so it is usually written in the first person. to maximize its impact, the essay should: be written to have an emotional impact on the reader. include a lot of references to sensory perceptions and hope i