Requirement (b) was for 12 marks, and asked for a critical appraisal of a proposed auditor’s report. The report contained many errors of fact and of judgment, and well prepared candidates scored highly here.

There were some quite obvious matters that most candidates discussed, for example that the structure of the report was not correct, the wording was not professional, the basis for opinion paragraph lacked sufficient detail, and the nature of the modification was wrong in the circumstances described in the scenario.

Most candidates also commented on the incorrect use of the Emphasis of Matter paragraph and correctly determined the materiality of the two issues described in the scenario. Overall however, answers to this requirement were often too short for the marks available, and while most issues had been identified, they were not always well explained.