*** ACCA Paper AA December 2018 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

The part 1 was really a disaster. I”m not a native english speaker so it took lots of time just to understand what is the meaning of the questions! They were unusual and strange, as for me. Now I”m trying to remember at least one of the questions from part1 and I can”t((

That is my last paper in the fundamentals level and only a miracle will help me to pass)
Sorry for offtop)

From the part2: one of the latest question

“The profit before tax is about 2.3 mln. The development of a new product was capitalised at a sum of 0.5 mln. The criterea for capitalization was not met. The CFO refuses to make adjustment because thinks the error is not material. How this situation will affect the audit report?”

I answered, that the error is material and it is pervasive (the PPE is overstated, the expenses are underestimated and the profit is overestimated). So the adverse opinion should be issued.
What do you think?

Agree. Part A is really difficult compared with the past paper. I almost take an hour on Part A. Which caused the limited time to spend with Part B.

Again, I spend another 1 more hour on Q1 in Part B.

the time allocation is really not good this time. I don’t have time to complete Q3 in Part B which is really an easy question.

Cross finger…

Can anyone tell me that if your year end is 20 sept 20×2 and at 20 sept 20×2 you are developing a product costing $8m and you capitilized it but developing product worth $1m was against the criteria so will it be an adjusting or non-adjusting event?

What about the rest of the amount ($0.4m)? I wrote about the whole amount because that was the amount of the claim. I wrote qualified opiniom,as although it was material it did not change the situation of the company and should not influence shareholders to sell their shares… And yes,the exam was confusing and difficult nad again there was not enough time…

Only one question in section 2 i just couldnt answer. What was the answer for the section 2, second set of questions (i think), about auditors and how they ensure quality? something like that.

Section A was tricky, 50% of section b contains only substantive procedures.

There was one question on substantive procedure which has the scenerio that company accrued for good received not invoiced and 20% of the invoices has not been received.

One question was to explain importance of internal audit department which assist director in fraud and error.

One question was to write substantive procedures on discount receivable.

Scnerio was something like that there was discount linked from the supplier with the volume of goods and director is sure that the volume will reached to the limit and has therefore recorded discount as a receivable and reduced it through cost of sales as he thinks that he would sale all of the quantity purchase at the end of the year.
Company year end was sep 20×8 and discount claimed in feb 20×9

@jennie1984, yes the 3 mark question was to write the purpose and importance of audit engagement letter..

Phew I was driving home and suddenly thought it was management letter. I definitely wrote about engagement – terms add conditions, reduce risk of misunderstanding and expectations gap and acceptance

@alanm1980 said:
My 30 mark question was mainly on Audit Risk with a little Substantive Procedure for Alabaster Co, there was that much text the risks weren’t jumping out as clear for me compared with the test papers I have done. I managed to get 6 down and then moved on as was over my time limit on the question, luckily I had 5 minutes left at the end so managed to go back and put the remaining 2 down although I am not confident I put enough to receive full marks.

My first 20 mark question was purely substantive procedure with the question on the auditor report already mentioned at the end, I think the company was called Retriever.

My second 20 mark question was Internal Control for Snowball, I think I did okay on this one although it depends on if I put enough or the correct detail to get the marks. I probably lost marks on the last component though regarding how Internal Audit can help the Directors with Fraud prevention. I got a few points down regarding testing various controls but then had a memory block.

I suspect I will fail as I didn’t put enough question practice in beforehand, I read a lot of the papers and answers but didn’t have enough time to actually sit them as exams and write my versions of the answers so struggled a bit at times.

Anyway its not the end of the world and I will be better prepared if I need to resit. 🙂

We had the same section B.

Very tricky section A but section B was ok. My section B questions appear to be different from the ones mentioned in this thread. Questions I had were not about Snowball or Alabaster Co. I thought section B was always the same for everyone?

Regardless, good luck everyone.

@harryks89 said:
Very tricky section A but section B was ok. My section B questions appear to be different from the ones mentioned in this thread. Questions I had were not about Snowball or Alabaster Co. I thought section B was always the same for everyone?

Regardless, good luck everyone.

CBE’s take questions from a question pool so not everyone receives the same set of questions. The difficulty level should be the same however regardless of question set.

For the impact on audit report I wrote qualified opinion because I think misstatement was was not pervasive.