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I couldn’t understand what examiner looking for, students knowledge or harassing ? Such a long questions reading and absorbing itself required min 45 minutes! Disappointed and still struggling for my final paper.
Dear raoul7370,
Maybe 22+ year experienced tutors/markers/examiners should pay a visit to real life from time to time as they seem to be totally missing the point:
”There are not 15 mins of reading time. Haven’t been for years. By the time 15 mins were up, you should have had 6 ratios calculated for 2 years and Briefing notes set up and have 9 marks minimum in the bank.”
Audit should not be about how many marks you have in the bank, a good auditor should perform a proper understanding of the client, through meetings/discussions with client management and personnel SUPPORTED BY THE analytical review performed. In exam conditions this means that it should not be enough to just calculate random ratios, you have to spend TIME to understand what are the most relevant ones for your client/client industry e.g. there is no point in computing inventory turnover if the balance is immaterial as you are dealing with a services company – you can learn this by reading the question, not just the requirement.”The key is to provide 18 marks of answer, not answer the entire scenario (where she provides too many risks so that everyone will find some, not to overload you)”,
”The moment you see a new sub acquired, that is overseas, even if story says same year end, they use IFRS and have same acc policies, and even with story saying ignore disclosure risks (I did not do the exam but am told it said that?), you have at least 4 audit risks (initial GW, impaired GW at y/e, forex retranslation, pre v post acqn reserves calc). That is 8 marks if well explained. Add on 6 for ratios, 3 for Prof Marks, and surely there are 4 standard goodwill tests on any company and you have 21 already having barely touched the scenario (if at all). No controls testing, and use of IA staff, must be worth at least 2 easy marks? That’s 23 and still haven’t read the story that everyone will always say is too long.”
”As I said to one of my class, if you think you have too many risks be happy. Shows you know what you are doing. Just go with those you are most comfortable explaining and ditch the rest. Has always been like this, and I don’t understand why so many students think they have to cover every available point”.
In real life an auditor should consider ALL the significant risks that the client is facing, not just the most obvious ones and most certainly not just the ones that he has time to look into or the ones that he is most comfortable with/understands. Again this means TIME spent understanding the client. Risk assessment should mean likelihood, impact, prioritization, thus TIME. There is a reason for that time resource prerequisite when accepting an audit, don’t you think?”Fact is I haven’t seen the exam but have just written an answer to Q1 that will get 25 marks minimum. Based only on what requirements say. So if I can do that without reading a single word of the scenario that is apparently too long, why isn’t every student doing it too? Having poor exam technique is not the examiner’s fault and if you keep blaming everyone else you will never improve” ”The very fact you say I should see the paper before commenting shows the problem. No I don’t need to see it, because the scenario is not the key to passing this, it is the requirements.
many students having appalling technique for this paper”
This here is actually the biggest issue – you see, a proper audit exam would not allow passing it without reading the question, exam technique should not be the key to passing, professional judgement and scepticism should be the key. The equivalent in real life means do the minimum work in the time assigned, do not extend audit procedures if you have a riskier client, thus sacrifice quality. As long as you get the big fat fee/50% mark, it is ok.”All exam papers are “trial sat””
By whom? Tutors, students, auditors? Skilled in exam technique or in audit?”But if you have fallen foul to overrunning due to a failure to do the above, worry not (well not too much). So many people will have done the same, and surely ACCA want a pass rate no worse than 30%”, ”Rest assured the pass rate will not change much, which should mean that nobody has any more or less chance of success than they would have done under the old format.”
This is just sad, I always suspected pass rate manipulation as there was no change in trend except for cases in which the examiner or exam structure changed e.g. the artificial increase for P3 up to 56% before the merger with P1.To conclude, if this exam would practice what it preaches, maybe we would not see so many audit failures involving qualified professionals…
I think professional papers especially AAA should be at least 3h 30m. The paper was not so difficult but time forced me towards the end to give partially detailed answers so I could grab some marks across the paper instead of focusing on one question. I hope the examiner really looks into the issue of time, it was a marathon.
I totally disagree that knowledge should be the end all of this paper and technique shouldn’t play a key role. Sure 80% of the syllabus is coverd in other exams!!
We’re supposed to have strong brought forward knowledge for this exam more than any other. Including all the IFRS standards in P2. Standard are crucial in AAA. But there are absolute no new ones to learn in AAA that you shouldn’t already be very familiar with from P2! That is only a hint at how the majority of knowledge should already be in your head before studying AAA if you are serious about learning and being an educated accountant.
There are only a few new ‘AAA exclusive’ topics such as Money Laundering and Auditor Liability, but even they aren’t commonly examined. All the commonly examined stuff stems from stuff you should already have a good knowledge of from previous papers.
And in the real world, technique is crucial in audit as well. There is a lot of work in auditing now days to do an acceptable, high quality audit. Having the skills to perform a time efficient audit that is worth the time and money, while not sacrificing any of the quality that you absolutely need to provide, is arguably the biggest challenge audit firms face and with so much competition for fees it only gets harder.
So how appropriate then that in the biggest and final Audit exam before you qualify, your ability to manage your time efficiently while not sacrificing the quality of your answers should be one of the biggest challenges in the exam.
Welcome to the real world, folks.
IT WAS SO LONG. As would be professionals, what were we being tested on.. Speed? Yes that’s why that exam WS all about. Speed.
Which auditor can analyse all that in 3 hour and produce professional feedback? No wonder the pass rates will continue being that low.
The questions were familiar. But without professional analysis from a woud be auditor, pass rates will be low again this year.Professional paer like auditing needs professional analysis . and not being tested on .speed
I am really sick and tired of the exam technique topic that tutors and examiners are so keen of and keep bringing up. Nobody uses this exam technique in real life, hopefully. In 10+ years working in both internal and external audit, I had my share of time pressured audits. Thank God that I didn’t use the exam technique recommended of not reading anything about the client, blankly computing ratios and cherry picking the risks that I’m most comfortable with, or the usual standard risks for the respective type of engagement. Understanding and risk assessment usually took about 25-30% of the time allocated to the engagement. In a highly regulated, rapidly changing environment it is crucial to invest enough time to understand what you are assessing, instead of applying pre-defined knowledge. It could be possible that a risk which affects many similar companies from the industry is not relevant for the audited company, or that the audited company faces uncommon risks for that industry.
Regarding money laundering, maybe it should be a big deal for this exam with some requirements of applied knowledge instead of just defining money laundering / stages of money laundering. The number of fines applied by regulators is constantly increasing and there are some recent cases in which the fine value was so huge (several hundred million euros) that the regulator actually had to consider if the company will be able to pay it. Being able to identify ML is more important than being able to define it in my opinion.I just wanted to emphasize that audit should be about reading, understanding, applying professional judgement, being sceptic. This is what matters most, not just exam technique.
AAA Q2 Impairment test, there was no impairment. however, the fall in revenue due to the new competitor would call for disclosure of “going concern” issues. Therefore an “Emphasis of matter” paragraph is needed. Unmodified Opinion Emphasis of Matter.
Alaya, may I ask are you a tutor, student or a former student who has completed the qualification?
Lemmy, I believe there was an impairment as both value in use and fv less costs to sell were below carrying value.
It was 24 marks for audit risks exludimg comments on disclosures (i.e. segmental reporting etc)
I think it was a new client. It mentioned at the beginning that “…we were assigned for the audit of…” and in past exam audit risk qs this setence was treating the client as a new one.
With all due respect alaya I think you are missing the point.
All those things you mentioned are being adequately examined. But so is your ability to think and come up with solutions fast as well. If you really, really know them well and to a high standard, pulling out at least half enough information from Q1 to score 50% in the 90 minutes allocated to it should really not be a problem for you. When you know stuff as well as you are expected for this exam it should be second nature for you.
Robertoh I am a student. I also happen to know a quite a few FCCAs through the nature of my work and it is sad that most of them don’t even remember the basics about IAS. If I talk to them and say for eg IAS12 requires this and that, they immediately ask what is this IAS about?. Also none of them remembers any of the exams passed for eg that P7 is audit.
I agree with being able to think fast and to finding solutions quickly. But there is a huge difference between fast and under pressure. ACCA means under pressure not fast.
Alaya, did you write this paper? If you had to attempt,it, am sure you will appreciate what we are trying to say
@alayanic18 said:
Dear raoul7370,Maybe 22+ year experienced tutors/markers/examiners should pay a visit to real life from time to time as they seem to be totally missing the point:
”There are not 15 mins of reading time. Haven’t been for years. By the time 15 mins were up, you should have had 6 ratios calculated for 2 years and Briefing notes set up and have 9 marks minimum in the bank.”
Audit should not be about how many marks you have in the bank, a good auditor should perform a proper understanding of the client, through meetings/discussions with client management and personnel SUPPORTED BY THE analytical review performed. In exam conditions this means that it should not be enough to just calculate random ratios, you have to spend TIME to understand what are the most relevant ones for your client/client industry e.g. there is no point in computing inventory turnover if the balance is immaterial as you are dealing with a services company – you can learn this by reading the question, not just the requirement.”The key is to provide 18 marks of answer, not answer the entire scenario (where she provides too many risks so that everyone will find some, not to overload you)”,
”The moment you see a new sub acquired, that is overseas, even if story says same year end, they use IFRS and have same acc policies, and even with story saying ignore disclosure risks (I did not do the exam but am told it said that?), you have at least 4 audit risks (initial GW, impaired GW at y/e, forex retranslation, pre v post acqn reserves calc). That is 8 marks if well explained. Add on 6 for ratios, 3 for Prof Marks, and surely there are 4 standard goodwill tests on any company and you have 21 already having barely touched the scenario (if at all). No controls testing, and use of IA staff, must be worth at least 2 easy marks? That’s 23 and still haven’t read the story that everyone will always say is too long.”
”As I said to one of my class, if you think you have too many risks be happy. Shows you know what you are doing. Just go with those you are most comfortable explaining and ditch the rest. Has always been like this, and I don’t understand why so many students think they have to cover every available point”.
In real life an auditor should consider ALL the significant risks that the client is facing, not just the most obvious ones and most certainly not just the ones that he has time to look into or the ones that he is most comfortable with/understands. Again this means TIME spent understanding the client. Risk assessment should mean likelihood, impact, prioritization, thus TIME. There is a reason for that time resource prerequisite when accepting an audit, don’t you think?”Fact is I haven’t seen the exam but have just written an answer to Q1 that will get 25 marks minimum. Based only on what requirements say. So if I can do that without reading a single word of the scenario that is apparently too long, why isn’t every student doing it too? Having poor exam technique is not the examiner’s fault and if you keep blaming everyone else you will never improve” ”The very fact you say I should see the paper before commenting shows the problem. No I don’t need to see it, because the scenario is not the key to passing this, it is the requirements.
many students having appalling technique for this paper”
This here is actually the biggest issue – you see, a proper audit exam would not allow passing it without reading the question, exam technique should not be the key to passing, professional judgement and scepticism should be the key. The equivalent in real life means do the minimum work in the time assigned, do not extend audit procedures if you have a riskier client, thus sacrifice quality. As long as you get the big fat fee/50% mark, it is ok.”All exam papers are “trial sat””
By whom? Tutors, students, auditors? Skilled in exam technique or in audit?”But if you have fallen foul to overrunning due to a failure to do the above, worry not (well not too much). So many people will have done the same, and surely ACCA want a pass rate no worse than 30%”, ”Rest assured the pass rate will not change much, which should mean that nobody has any more or less chance of success than they would have done under the old format.”
This is just sad, I always suspected pass rate manipulation as there was no change in trend except for cases in which the examiner or exam structure changed e.g. the artificial increase for P3 up to 56% before the merger with P1.To conclude, if this exam would practice what it preaches, maybe we would not see so many audit failures involving qualified professionals…
BIG CHAPEAU TO Alaya
Very reasonable & open-minded arguments and very convincing debate
From examiners point of view, the intensive , exaggerated and excessive focus on the exam techniques to pass and collect points through minimal reading in very tight timings conditions take us away from the overall aim of the ACCA qualification which is producing a final product ” Qualified Accountant/Auditor ” who can deals and challenge in real life situations
“And in the real world, technique is crucial in audit as well. There is a lot of work in auditing now days to do an acceptable, high quality audit. Having the skills to perform a time efficient audit that is worth the time and money, while not sacrificing any of the quality that you absolutely need to provide, is arguably the biggest challenge audit firms face and with so much competition for fees it only gets harder ”
In fact , in real world , this pretended exam technique promote heavily the time efficiency at the expense of sacrificing the audit quality”All exam papers are “trial sat””
“By whom? Tutors, students, auditors? Skilled in exam technique or in audit?”
This is true , any proof by which ACCA can substantiate this statement ?? i mean to be tested by expert in exam sitting Not expert in audit only”There are not 15 mins of reading time. Haven’t been for years. By the time 15 mins were up, you should have had 6 ratios calculated for 2 years and Briefing notes set up and have 9 marks minimum in the bank.”
Every thing in life is subject of changes to reflect current , recent situations , events and circumstances , why this holy and sacred 15 minutes will be forever constant and not flexible to changes according to the new format ? Why not to study extension of time to 45 instead of 15 if there is wide consensus that is too short ?If this poll & other surveys on any accounting forums are waste of time and useless as many argues and nothing will change by the ACCA . Why ACCA conduct any survey / scanning or what will the benefit of any feed backs ? This will lead a rigidity in policies , and in approaches which will keep ACCA back in comparison with other bodies
For Q1, it didn’t occur to me, to calculate ratios
stupid i Know, because why else was the SOFP there ?
how many marks would i have lost for this ?
{i did come up with a lot of audit risks, maybe 10}
were there many valid points to be taken from the ratios ?Hopping that corrector take into consideration that the length of 5 Exhibits of Q1 under new format is much more hard than time saving gained by avoiding reading 3 optional scenario to select 2 from
@gladys2001 said:
Alaya, did you write this paper? If you had to attempt,it, am sure you will appreciate what we are trying to sayYes, I attempted AAA. I left the exam hall with a terrible headache and my fingers were hurting from so much writing. It was frustrating because there was 0 time for reading, 0 time for thinking, 0 time for analysis. I wouldn’t have complained, but reading the sarcastic comments of raoul7370 provoked me. I realised that I wasted my time studying the syllabus and practicing questions, I should have studied exam technique instead.
Hmmm!!! what an exam and question in particular was agonizingly long! Spent more than 40 minutes trying to get my head around it as the requirements were so overwhelming. Managed to do well in question 2 and part of question 3; it will be marginal pass or failure for me but God is in control.
i missed the figures then. you know time issues. if my memory serves me right, there was mention of recoverable amount(found by the Client) which was equal to the carrying value. hence no impairment. correct me if i am wrong.
For FV you need to deduct the costs to sell which were listed – excluding the additional reorg costs. This took the value below £3.6m by £85k
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If you don’t like my comments on technique failings (which are designed to help students ignore the nonsense being spouted on here about the paper being too long, which are at risk of making everyone think the paper is impossible, which is the opposite of the truth), then ignore them and continue to use whatever other technique you think appropriate.
I am not being sarcastic. I am trying to help. The comments on here about the exam being too long, unfair etc are nonsense, and will put students off doing this paper in the future for no good reason. I have a professional duty to put right these comments. It is in the public interest, in my humble opinion.
For the record Alaya, I could not agree more about the failings of the audit industry, and have been published writing on this very subject. But an exam can only set a base, and it cannot test real life human behaviour. The real world audit quality (or lack of) has nothing to do with exams, it has to do with real world pressures and real world human failings. I cannot imagine any exam that can test that effectively, unfortunately.
(Alaya, if you want to send your thoughts to ACCA, I would certainly not try to deter you – valid points).
There is a reason I (and well prepared students) can produce good quality answers quickly. It is because we have already thought about them many times in the past. There is no lack of thought – just that we had already done it in practising many past papers.
And let me be very clear (apologies for the Theresa May impression) – I would certainly read all of the info given. My point is that I can get a pass BEFORE reading it, and then add to my answer or tweak certain points as I read it. Of course all the info should be read!!! Just get some safe points down first, that’s all I am saying.
You cannot change the exam process. You can however work efficiently within the framework forced upon you. And that is why exam tutors (I teach university audit courses in a very different manner) do what we do.
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