my history teacher is being mean giving us an in class essay midterm

how am I possibly supposed to remember all the things I need to know to write a 3 page essay in class. He gave us a list of five questions and is like “one of these will be your midterm essay question so prepare outlines for all of these and be prepared to answer all of them”

and I’m like

can’t you just tell us what the question is so I can memorize only the things required for that one question and prepare myself so I know it inside out

why you gotta be like this history professor