The success of passing the final school exam as a criterion for university admission: the relationship between the quality of training and the scores obtained

Introduction. Today, education is seen as the driving force behind the progressive and stable development of society. In response to the challenges of the time, modern universities must adapt to the processes taking place in school education, including the preparation for the final school exam, which requires the mobilization of all types of resources (intellectual, emotional, volitional, financial, etc.). The effectiveness of this process largely depends on the right strategy, the ability to manage emotions, and the proper organization of pedagogical support and family assistance. The results of this exam determine a student's admission to a university and their future life. The purpose of the study is to analyze the relationship between the quality of preparation for the Russian language final school exam and the scores obtained, as well as to analyze the attitude of first-year students towards taking this exam in Russian. Materials and methods. The study was conducted in four stages: from September 2024 to May 2025, with the participation of 75 students from the Stupino branch of the Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University), who were first-year full time students in technical fields and had recently passed their final exams at school. The empirical data were collected using an author-developed questionnaire and narrative interview materials obtained during a roundtable discussion. The research methods used were search, descriptive, comparative, narrative interview, and systematization and generalization. KEYWORDS Results. According to the study, an effective form of preparation for the final exam in Russian is multi-component preparation (7%), including different types of combinations (online schools, tutors, comprehensive school, self-study) using long-term (24%) and short-term strategies (8%). The highest result was obtained by schoolchildren (31%) who chose a multi-component and long-term preparation strategy. It was found that the emotional background of such children was very unstable and characterized by a high level of anxiety, which led to the inability to store the information obtained during the preparation for this exam for a long period. During the narrative interview, first-year students voiced a request to repeat a number of topics from the exam (spelling, punctuation and difficult cases of stress placement) related to the actualization of written and oral speech skills, as well as those topics that were not included in the school curriculum and aroused keen interest, in particular the practice of oral public speaking (35%). Conclusion. The results of the study have been implemented in the bachelor's degree program in four technical areas in the form of spelling, punctuation, and orthoepic training in order to update these topics. Also, the curriculum of the Russian Language and Speech Culture discipline includes practical training on topics necessary for the formation of professional competencies: "Business Communication Etiquette", "Practice of Oral Public Speaking", and "Rules for Conducting a Polylogue, Discourse, and Discussion". Taking into account the results obtained, the program of preparatory courses in the Russian language for passing the final exam upon graduation from the school at the Stupino branch of MAI was improved.