p7 advanced audit and assurance

WARNING:The examiners deliberately try to avoid question spotting. Use the tips as areas to have a good look at, but remember that no-one knows what’s in the exam except the examiner. Your safest bet is to achieve good syllabus coverage in your revision, as the examiner aims to do in the exam.

BPP Tips:

The areas that we would expect to see most regularly in the exam in the compulsory section of the paper are:

o Risk and planning - the examiner has already set one such question in the December 2007 exam, asking for principal audit risks to be considered when planning the audit
(a good example of this from the 2007 BPP Study Text is question 7 “Gasoleum”)
o Evidence gathering - with particular emphasis on specific assertions and audit procedures (a good example of what to expect is question 14 “Griffin plc” from the 2007 BPP Study Text)
o Reporting - Students will require a knowledge of the relevant financial reporting requirements to answer a reporting question well (see question 27 “Reporting issues” in the 2007 BPP Study Text)
o Ethics & professional issues - A question on this area of the syllabus will be wide ranging and will not just focus on independence issues (see question 2 “Aventura International” in the 2007 BPP Study Text for an exam standard question on ethics)
o Definitions of specific terms were required in December 2007 (eg “outsourcing” and “forensic accounting”). See question 11 “Bingham Engineering” from the 2007 BPP Study Text for an illustration of how this might be examined.
You should note that any of these items could also be tested in Section B of the paper.

Other areas that we would expect to see, particularly in the optional part of the paper are:

o Non-audit assignments, for example the audit of prospective financial information or forensic audits (question 23 “Scenarios” in the 2007 BPP Study Text is a good indication of what to expect here)
o Group audit issues (see question 18 “Annabella Ltd” in the 2007 BPP Study Text for an exam style groups question)
o Quality control and practice management (Question 3 “PLD Associates” from the 2007 BPP Study Text is a useful question to test understanding in this area)