Phonetics and Orthoepy
What to master
Phonetics studies speech sounds; orthoepy studies pronunciation norms. For the exam you need to separate letters from sounds, mark stress, and explain vowel reduction and consonant changes. Russian stress is mobile and meaningful: за́мок (castle) vs замо́к (lock). Unstressed vowels reduce: after hard consonants, о and а become [ʌ] in the first pre-stressed syllable and [ъ] farther away; after soft consonants, е, я and а reduce to [иэ] or [ь]. Voiced consonants devoice word-finally (дуб → [п]), and clusters assimilate by voicing or deafness (сделать → [з]). Know special pronunciations: -ого/-его → [ово]/[ево], -ться → [ца], and some -чн- words read [шн] (конечно, скучно), while most read [чн].
Traps
Questions often test letters that have no sound (ь, ъ) or sounds without a separate letter ([й] inside я, е, ё, ю). Do not count й as a vowel. In что and чтобы, ч is pronounced [ш]. Double consonants may be long or short, especially in loanwords. Never transcribe from spelling alone: молоко is not [молоко].
Worked example
For молоко, stress is final. The first о is in the first pre-stressed syllable → [ʌ]; the second о is farther from stress → [ъ]. A practical transcription is [мълʌко́]. Rule of thumb: mark stress first, divide into syllables, then apply reduction and assimilation only where the rules apply.
Rule of thumb
Before answering, underline the stressed vowel and say the word aloud slowly; exam distractors usually exploit a letter–sound mismatch or an exception list.