The Unified State Exam (USE) is like a lottery. I experienced this firsthand when I realized that my physics exam had a flawed version (I glanced over it, and it seemed okay, so I thought I could solve it), but when they changed the version, I couldn't do anything, it was incredibly difficult! And what should we call this? A real lottery.
Regarding the essay in Russian: Isn't it true that in Part C, you need to write an essay? When I took the exam, we had to write a review. And an essay and a review are different things.
In general, I'm against the USE – it's a complete mess and doesn't reflect true knowledge at all.