This 10-mark question covered the topics of true and fair concept, International Standards on Auditing (ISAs) and audit documentation.

Part (a) for 4 marks required candidates to explain the true and fair concept. Candidates’ performance was mixed on this question. Candidates clearly are aware of the concept but struggled to explain it with sufficient clarity.

Also many candidates failed to score full marks as they did not make a sufficient number of points for 4 marks.

A common answer was to describe true as being “truthful” and to explain fair in relation to “fairness.” This does not answer the question. In addition a minority also confused their explanations between true and fair, for example, stating “true means unbiased”.

Also a significant minority, having gained credit for stating that true and fair means that there are no material misstatements in the financial statements, then went onto a detailed description of materiality which was not required.