How Abhishek scored 96 in AUDIT?

by Sailaja Simandhar Simandhar Education - CPA, CMA, CA, IFRS

We are delighted to share that our student Mr.Abhishek (CA, CPA Aspirant) has scored 96 in the CPA-Audit exam.

He shared about ‘How he got 96 in the Audit exam?’

Let’s move right into his experience.

Hi, I’m Abhishek.

I’m a qualified CA and now pursuing the CPA Course from Simandhar Education.

All – my two cents on CPA AUD preparation. I hope you all find it useful:

1) First and foremost may be rhetoric, but there is no substitute for hard work. Don’t try shortcuts, but respect the course and try to cover everything at least once. Though exams have some theme around certain important topics, somehow or the other, in exams they touch almost every topic, so it’s important to cover everything – It’s only a point difference between 74 and 75. Obviously post that, we focus on the key areas and weak areas.

2) From the Materials perspective Becker along with Simandhar classes and notes are more than enough. I don’t think there is a need to refer to any other materials or supplementary.

3) From the US CPA Exam perspective – especially in Audit, it’s very critical to read the question carefully and understand the question’s call. Many times they play with wordings and try to confuse the question.

4) If you are stuck in an MCQ, try to use the process of elimination. Try to think like an auditor, and 9 times out of 10, the most conservative answer from the auditors perspective would be correct.

5) Some of the heavily tested areas are assertions and audit procedures (directional testing), MCQs from 5/6 (especially compilation, preparation), audit reports (adverse/disclaimer), EOM, other matter and explanatory paras.

6) I’m working full time, so I managed my studies by studying in the mornings a couple of hours, kept listening to lectures on repeat mode while driving back and forth (though I will not recommend), and an hour or so in the evenings covering the MCQs and SIMS… Solid 6-8 hours per day on weekends.

7) I believe in continuous reinforcements and revisions. While moving to the next module, I used to try and do 30 MCQ and 3/4 sim testlets of previous modules as and when time permitted – that kept the concepts fresh and was helpful in the final revision.

8) I’m really not a notes person; my habit is to make stuff in the textbook while reading- so unfortunately, not a lot of notes which I can share.

9) A4 SIMS are very important – I made sure I did each sim in A4 at least twice. These are some sims in A4 with several exhibits – try mastering them more to hang on how to go about them in the exam. There would be at least 2/3 sims with lots of exhibits in the exams, which can be overwhelming, so the key is to be patient and practice in advance.

10) In the sims – correcting entries, payables recon, AR confirmations, sales/inventory kind of sims are a regular feature.

11) In exams from time management, my strategy was to complete both the MCQ sets in an hour to have full 3 hours for SIMS. Maybe only a handful of questions may require computations, and most of the others would be theory, so I think it’s possible to complete them in an hour so that there is ample time for SIMs.

I hope it’s of some use to you guys.

All the best to everyone.