ACCA AA Audit Risk Questions: 3 Mistakes Costing You Marks in June 2026

Audit risk questions are worth 14 marks in AA. The September/December 2025 examiner report shows candidates are throwing away marks on the same three mistakes every sitting. Fix these before June 2026 and you'll outscore most of the room.

Mistake 1: Copying the fact instead of identifying the risk

The examiner is explicit: "Simply stating a fact from the scenario is not always the same as identifying an audit risk." Candidates who use the copy-and-paste function to lift text from the scenario and present it as an audit risk identification score zero for that half mark.

Here's how this plays out in practice. The scenario says a company changed its raw material supplier to a cheaper alternative and warranty claims have since increased. The warranty provision in the financial statements is the same as the prior year.

Wrong: "The company changed to a cheaper supplier and warranty claims have increased."
Right: "The warranty provision may be understated because the provision has not been increased to reflect the rise in warranty claims following the supplier change."

The fact is the trigger. The risk is what could be wrong in the financial statements. You need the assertion — understated, overstated, cut-off, completeness — to get both the identification and explanation marks.

Mistake 2: Writing a management response instead of an auditor response

For auditor's responses, the examiner reports candidates "provided management responses" repeatedly across different question diets. When the scenario mentioned a financial controller had left, candidates wrote "recruit a replacement financial controller." That is what management should do. The auditor cannot hire anyone.

Wrong: "Recruit a replacement financial controller as soon as possible."
Right: "Assign more experienced audit staff to cover the period where there was no financial controller; perform additional journal entry testing for the four-month gap to identify errors that may have gone undetected."

Before you write a response, ask: is this something the auditor does to gather evidence? If not, delete it. Auditor responses focus on procedures to perform, evidence to obtain, or team decisions to make — not business advice.

Mistake 3: Writing "increase professional scepticism" and stopping there

The examiner is clear: "Candidates often suggest 'increased professional scepticism' for a whole range of audit risks, and whilst valid, it is not on its own a suitable auditor's response for 1 mark." Across the Sept/Dec 2025 paper, this phrase only gained the full mark for one specific risk — the departure of the financial controller — and only because it was accompanied by specific follow-up procedures.

Professional scepticism is a mindset, not a procedure. A response that says nothing beyond "increase professional scepticism" cannot demonstrate to a marker that you know what the auditor would actually do next.

Wrong: "Increase professional scepticism due to the departure of the financial controller."
Right: "Increase professional scepticism during the period the financial controller was absent; perform extended testing of journals and reconciliations for the four-month period and discuss any unusual entries with senior management to identify whether errors occurred."

What to do before June 2026

First, practise structuring every audit risk answer in three parts: the risk factor (from the scenario), the assertion and financial statement impact (understated/overstated/specific balance), and the auditor's specific response. Do not write any of these as a copy-paste from the question.

Second, test every response you write against one question: "Can the auditor physically do this?" If the answer is no, rewrite it. Auditors obtain evidence, examine documents, recalculate figures, make enquiries, and observe — they do not hire staff or change processes.

Third, practise the examiner's recommended past questions under timed conditions. For audit risk, the examiner specifically recommends: Pimento Co (March/June 2025), Musitastic Co (September/December 2024), Green Co (March/June 2024), and Knight Electronics Co (September/December 2023). These are all available free on the ACCA website.

The bigger picture

Audit risk is, in the examiner's words, "an important element in the syllabus and will continue to be." In Section B of AA, the 14-mark audit risk requirement alone accounts for 23% of the entire paper. The September/December 2025 pass rate for AA was 40%. Most of the gap between passing and failing is not technical knowledge — it is exam technique on questions exactly like this one.

Identify the risk. Write an auditor response. Be specific. That is the entire formula.