Part (b) for 5 marks required a description of the elements of an unmodified auditor’s report. This question was answered well by most candidates with many scoring well.

However the verb of “describe” was not as well addressed as it should have been. A description requires a certain level of detail and therefore to just give an answer such as “auditor’s responsibilities” is not a description and so would not have scored 1 mark. A brief paragraph explaining what the auditors’ responsibilities are, to form an opinion on the truth and fairness of the financial statements, was needed to score the full mark available.

In addition a minority of candidates were confused as to what was required for “elements of an audit report”, and so gave an explanation of what an unmodified audit opinion means, rather than what the elements are. Therefore they wrote at length about what true and fair means, this was not the question requirement. In addition a significant minority misunderstood the requirement and gave lists of the different types of audit opinions that can be given.