AAA*** ACCA Paper AAA December 2019 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

@ezehrobinson said: ACCA published a marking guide wherein they allotted 3 marks to each audit risk identified and explained while 1 Mark goes for each materiality (sometimes capped)

the long established "guarantee" is that a business risk will score up to 1.5, and a ROMM or audit risk up to 2 (plus an additional +1 for materiality assessment, but capped at 2). As we all know, the pass rate is not great, so it is no surprise that on some recent sittings business risks have been moving up to 2 marks each and ROMM or AR up to 3. And materiality up to 3 or 4. In calculating how much to write, I play safe and assume 1.5 for BR, 2 for ROMM or AR, and 2 materiality calcs ... but I would do 4 materiality calcs just in case (partly as a student might get the calc wrong, as many surprisingly manage to do). One other aspect to bear in mind is what 3 marks per ROMM might actually mean. If I see R+D costs, I have 2 risks to mention ... but the 3 marks might be set as a cap on risks to do with R+D, rather than 3 marks for each of my 2 risks. The marking guide is fluid sitting to sitting, so it is best to play safe and not assume too much generosity.

Yes this approach will ensure you max your marks and incase the marking scheme is changed i think for BR I only gave 6 and AR 7. As i was spending a lot of time and wanted to answer the other questions if i had spent more time to write more risks i would not have been able to finish Q3. Sometimes i think AAA is a speed test it is better to answer the whole paper than to try to get the one/tow questions fully done

@aynat said: Great! Thank you! Can you please explain about DD request. The question was " Within DD work, Auditor must assess target company (specifically Intangible Assets) Which enquirers will you send to the Target Company"s management?" I wrote several sentences, every of which was beginning from " Kindly, provide us with the following..." and then I listed: Licence Agreement with details, opening balance figures, calculation of amortization, Confirmation letter regarding alternative use of that intangible assets. I have never seen such requirements in Past Papers.... Thanks in Advance!

Just seen the sample questions on ACCA website. Q1 is the September Q1, but I note the first few words say that today is 1 July 20X5, and I presume the same will be done every sitting. So I presume the first sentence of December's Q1 also said this. Regarding the Due Diligence question, well they have not published it in the Sep/Dec sample so I cannot see it, but I would say the following: - no need to write actual questions, just describe the questions you would ask - I would be interested in both intangibles on the SFP, and intangibles that might have value to purchaser but not qualify as intangibles under IAS38 (e.g. R+D, internal brands and goodwill) - for patents I guess I would want to know how long they have left, is there a possibility to renew/extend, recent sales from the items patented - for licences, similar to patents - for brands, how much they spend on advertising, recent sales figures, any reputation issues such as legal cases - for R+D, what items are they working on, what stage reached, estimated launch dates, market research re potential sales, any legal issues, how tied in are the R+D staff You mentioned procedures - I guess the questions I am asking above are things I would otherwise check with alternative audit tests if I were the auditor of the target company, so a similar idea. Not sure what alternative use any intangible asset could have to be honest!

@aynat said: Thank you. Alternative use I proposed was for internally generated Patent. Whether it could be sold and this will give rise to extra cash inflow. And I also required Forecast with cope of documents, that corroborate main assumptions of the Forecast. Regarding the rest, the question was about two described in Q2 Intangible Assets. Not for any IA. Regarding the 01.07.2015- Has anybody seen in Q1 - Today is 01.07.2015? Thank you.

In the Sep/Dec 2019 sample questions published by ACCA, both Q1 and Q2 begin with the sentence telling you today is 1 July 20X5. It is not in Q3 (but then there are no dates at all in Q3, so today's date has no relevance to the answer). I imagine they have done the same for the December paper on all questions where there are dates in the story. Regarding intangibles, you cannot internally generate a patent - you have to buy one. You can internally generate a new product or invention (Development Costs would be capitalised as the asset), and then apply to patent your idea (which, if granted, should help protect the future revenue stream and hence the value of the development cost asset). I was hoping they would have published this but it looks like the sample questions for Sep/Dec are all September and no December questions at all!

@raoul7370 said: In the Sep/Dec 2019 sample questions published by ACCA, both Q1 and Q2 begin with the sentence telling you today is 1 July 20X5. It is not in Q3 (but then there are no dates at all in Q3, so today's date has no relevance to the answer). I imagine they have done the same for the December paper on all questions where there are dates in the story. Regarding intangibles, you cannot internally generate a patent - you have to buy one. You can internally generate a new product or invention (Development Costs would be capitalised as the asset), and then apply to patent your idea (which, if granted, should help protect the future revenue stream and hence the value of the development cost asset). I was hoping they would have published this but it looks like the sample questions for Sep/Dec are all September and no December questions at all!

Yes, disappointing that no questions from Dec have been published. Q1 did say "Today's date is 01 July 20X5". It was the first sentence of the question.

anyone on here sit the UK Stream paper? If so, did insolvency related stuff come up?

Question one was crazy hard and question three was misleading

Or maybe people who finsihed with time to spare were better prepared in answering the questions? Just saying - it would be rude to assume that answers wouldn't be as good as yours because someone had 10 mins to spare?