Audit and Assurance AA (F8) Tips and Tricks

Audit and Assurance AA, widely known as F8, is the most tricky one in the F series of ACCA journey. This paper is 97% theoretical, only 3% contains numerical work which is to find common ratios and to elaborate them. the average passing rate for Audit and Assurance AA is 36%. Many students get scared by looking at this passing rate worldwide. But they do not see the reasons behind the failure of the other 64% of students or they do not focus on the tips and tricks used by that lucky and talented 36 % of students.

Course

The course of Audit and Assurance AA is very short and precise, it consists of hardly 12 to 13 main chapters. the length of the chapters is also not very scary, but a deep understanding of these chapters is very necessary.

What examiner wants from student

examiner tests that how well a student knows the technicalities of audit principles, how much command a student has on audit procedures and audit frameworks, the examiner does not want your long stories instead of this, he will be satisfied by your one word or a sentence answer with RELEVANT knowledge in which you can explain the real logic behind the question asked.

Main areas to focus

As we all know that in ACCA, there is no choice of skipping any topic, so do not think to skip any line, but your main focus should be on the following areas because these are the examiner’s favourite areas to test:

• Internal Controls
• Audit Procedures
• Ethics
• Risk Assessment

How to overcome difficult areas of audit and assurance course

Students find ‘AUDIT PROCEDURES’ the most complex topic, and guess what they are not wrong! it requires extra time and cares to deal with procedures, but it is not impossible to master theses procedures, you only need a little more attention and common sense.

yes! you heard it right, trust me! it is only the game of common sense. for example, if you are applying procedures to audit the inventory, you need to know all the points, terminologies and processes involve in the inventory system, just gather the data in your mind that, when and from where we purchased inventory, and who was the supplier, was it on credit or cash, where we kept the inventory, figure out is there any inventory which can be obsolete or out of fashion.

Also, make assumptions in your mind and think about where possible risks can occur and how can we mitigate or reduce those risks. arrange your thoughts and procedures to find out and overcome those risks in the proper language of the audit by using proper terminologies of audit and assurance.

short and concise

Try to give your answer short and concise and always stick to the asked point. Your long paragraphs won’t help you until you fulfill the examiner’s requirement, trust me long paragraphs won’t help you in high scores.

Give yourself daily “goals”

Make a proper timetable and give yourself a daily task to complete. Make sure at the end of the day you have completed that. For a hardworking and consistent student, 1.5 or 2 months are enough for good preparation.

Do not waste too much time on study texts, just read them once or twice and start practicing from kits and mocks available on Acca Global website. While giving the mock exam, consider yourself in the examination hall and target yourself to complete the paper in less than 3 hours because, for many students, time management becomes a big barrier.

Study material

According to my own experience and from the recommendations of many students the easy, simple, and detailed book is “KAPLAN AUDIT AND ASSURANCE study textbook, you can simply purchase it from Kaplan and of course, if you want concise yet detailed notes of audit and assurance than you must go through Open Tuition notes.

But do not forget to solve kit questions as they strengthen your concepts when you solve them. try to solve as many questions as possible either from KAPLAN or BPP kit, but if you have enough time then try to solve both.

These tips have helped me pass Audit and Assurance paper and I hope you’ve found them helpful as well. Best of Luck for your Audit & Assurance AA (F8) paper.