Federation Business School BUACC5935: Auditing & Assurance Services Semester 3-2016 ASSIGNMENT This assignment is to be completed in groups of three and comprises twenty per-cent of the marks for this course. There are three questions. (Approx. 2000 words in total) Assessment Criteria: Student work will generally be assessed in terms of the following criteria: 1. Effectiveness of communication – i.e. readability, legibility, grammar, spelling, neatness, completeness and presentation will be a minimum threshold requirement for all written work submitted for assessment. Work that is illegible or incomprehensible and does not meet the minimum requirement will be awarded a fail grade. 2. Demonstrated understanding - This will be evidenced by the student's ability to be dialectical in the discussion of contentious issues. 3. Evidence of research - This will be evidenced by the references made to the statutes, auditing standards, books, journal articles and inclusion of a bibliography. Note: 1. All written work must conform with the Federation University General Guide for the Presentation of Academic Work. 2. For all written work students must ensure that they submit their own original work. Any act of plagiarism will be severely penalised. Plagiarism is presenting someone else work as your own and is a serious offence with serious consequences. As set out in the University Regulation 6.1.1, students who are caught plagiarising will, for a first offence, be given a zero mark for that task. A second offence will result in a failing grade for the course(s) involved and any subsequent offence will be referred to the Student Discipline Committee. Student must be aware of the University Regulation 6.1.1 Student Plagiarism. Students must:  fully reference the source(s) of all material, even if you have re-expressed the ideas, facts or descriptions;  acknowledge all direct quotations; and  not submit work that has been researched and written by another person. Question 1. (6 marks) Find your inner sceptic: It's not enough to be sceptical, you have to demonstrate it in practice. Explain and discuss Sourced from ICAEW Audit & Beyond 2016 http://www.icaew.com/en/technical/audit-and- assurance/faculty/audit-and- beyond Question 2. (7 marks) Critically discuss and explain what is meant by audit commoditization. Question 3. (7 marks) a) Explain the nature, size and scope of the big four accounting firms. b) Are they really accounting firms or are they morphing into something else?