ACCA Paper AA exam was – March 2021 Exam – Instant Poll and comments

Thought the paper was reasonable, covered lot of substantive procedure and assertion as expected. Thought the MCQs were challenging. Definitely a paper that tests your time management and exam technique. I fear for time management and not finishing the last big 16 marker I may have socked my chances. Never know with these exams though.
Beneficial if you have a more management based accounting position to apply practical knowledge– I learnt a lot from this paper! hopefully will help in my next one financial reporting.

It helped me a lot that I passed FR first before A&A. A lot of the knowledge there can be implemented in the audit paper 🙂 If you pass this one – do believe me, that you are a true hero!

I haven’t done FR and FM yet, decided AA was a good one to take for March sitting— definitely understand why FR is chronologically before AA now! agree there is a lot of knowledge needed for this exam as well as challenging your writing skills! the old PEE comes back from English high school lessons for the risk questions- Point, evidence, explain. I had the updating system notes from interim too question, also got stumped too!- was a four marker

Stevie87. Cant remember all 3 ot topics from section a..but one of them was on ethics and safeguards to threats to independence and another was audit planning and appropriate substantive procedures..can’t remember the rest of section a. Section b was…q16. describe narrative notes and questionnaires with a disadvantage of each..4 marks.
8 risks and responses. 16 marks.
Q17..describe purpose of audit strategy and audit plan with 2 examples of what would be included in each. 4 marks. 4 key controls and tocs 8 marks. 6 control deficiencies and recommendations 12 marks . Substantive procedures for receivables 6 marks q18 was 3 more sets of substantive procedures, a legal claim , revenue, and analytical procedures for payroll. 5, 6 and 4 marks not sure which way round..and 5 marks for impact on audit opinion if management refuse to make ammendments to the f.s. everything has come up before in some form in past papers but substantive procedures scenarios vary greatly so there’s no exact set of procedures you can learn..I recommend lots of practice on these so you work out appropriate procedures regardless of scenario. Best of luck

I was allowed to use my calculator today. I was asked to show my calculator via web cam and was told it was OK to keep it. The calculator is a scientific one.

@samono29 – as I have just recommended on another post, I suggest you have the scientific calculator you want to use and a basic one to hand in reserve. If the invigilator challenges you you can politely say, that you would like to proceed with this calculator which you know to be permitted and that the invigilator can of course report this but it should not prevent you from sitting the exam. It seems that some invigilators are used to a non-scientific calculator exam policy for other qualifications. I know it creates unnecessary stress and I have already reported to ACCA. You would then report in feedback through myACCA.

I found that exam tough, don’t get me wrong it was fair and there where some easy questions like the preconditions for audit engagement which were an easy three marks which but I drew a blank on! The substantive tests were fair but I just wasn’t prepared enough to describe and explain different methods based on the scenarios. My biggest regret was the 14 marks for identifying/describing and providing recommendations for audit risks in the scenario. That should have been an easy question with maximum marks achieved instead I think I managed three maybe four but they clearly asked for SEVEN which means there would have been more than, but I had nothing, I don’t even think the my answers will get any marks. Yes, feeling defeated today, guess the solution to that is to just start studying again for June.

The time management is the key in AA and truthfully I have struggled with that in my March exam. Typing fast does create mistakes and rectifying the mistakes are time consuming and stressing.
The exam itself was straight forward but to spend time to read scenarios and requirements and to typing fast is so much headache. Surely by typing fast the structure of answer could be messy and markers will not be satisfied with that therefore marks will not be given for those which is frustrating.

@saig080 – I would be really interested to hear how you got on when you get your results – and perhaps you can write some “tips” for future candidates visiting our forums on how to turn a marginal fail into a sound pass!

likelihood of the deficiency leading to a future material misstatement
the interaction of deficiency with other deficiencies
the importance of controls to financial reporting
The volume of transactions that happen or will happen in the area affected by deficiency
The no. of exceptions that arose as a result of the deficiency
And umm the subjectivity and complexity of estimates in the financial statements.