Can the Unified State Exam be an effective tool for selecting applicants to universities (content aspects)?

The subject of the research in this article is the content of the Unified State Exam (USE), as well as an assessment of its ability to serve as a tool for selecting applicants to universities. Among the methods used in the research, the results of which formed the basis of this article, is the method of social experiment. Its essence is that the author of the study tried to pass the training versions of the Unified State Exam in social studies, and also looked at a number of tasks on the Unified State Exam in other disciplines. During the study, it was found that there are a number of tasks on the Unified State Exam, to which the correct answer is in principle impossible and the correctness of which is determined entirely at the discretion of the compilers of this test (the so-called ‘failed tasks’). Examples of these tasks are given. Given the absence of a real result in the USE certificates of knowledge by applicants of certain sections of the school course, which are associated with sections of the university course in a particular field of study, as well as due to the presence of ‘failed tasks’, it is concluded that the USE is ineffective as a tool for selecting applicants to universities. In some cases, ambiguous interpretations of certain concepts, especially in the field of social sciences, are not taken into account when compiling tasks for the Unified State Exam. Also, the compilers of the Unified State Exam ignore the psychological patterns of such an exam, which leads to so-called "gaps in thinking" among exam takers. Therefore, the results of the Unified State Exam do not always reflect the real knowledge of applicants. The ways of improving the USE procedure in social and humanitarian disciplines (history, social studies) are proposed.