Paper 2 - necessary to read audit trail?

Hi

The CA2 guide for paper 2 suggests taking 30 mins to work through the model and plan the extra work. I invariably find that it takes me longer than that. So to save time I'm wondering if it is really necessary to read the existing audit trail. The spreadsheet models are usually self-explanatory, and reading the audit trail can waste valuable time.

I'm thinking of only looking at the audit trail for 3 reasons:
1. Getting the assumptions
2. If there is any specific calculation that doesn't make sense
3. The audit trail overview can be adapted for the summary

Any comments on this approach?

Dan

EDIT: thinking about this again, the audit trails do sometimes include *observations* on results which could reasonably make their way into the summary. So it does make sense to read through the whole audit trail

 

Sounds like playing with fire. A bit like reading half the question on a written paper. The clues are there kind of thing. Use all the data available to you which in this case includes the audit trail

 

Reading a good audit trail ought to be far quicker than weeding through the spreadsheet to understand what has been done.

 

Thanks bystander... remind me to get your opinion in future before I contemplate any stupid decisions

So didster, you recommend reading the audit trail before looking at the model? I've tended to do the opposite for the past papers I've tried

Dan

 

Just finished writing paper 2, and I did find it very useful to read the audit trail after all! I read it at the same time as going through the spreadsheet, which I found to be the best approach.

 

looking at the time on your post you still had 5 minutes left !!

 

yeah... I uploaded 5 minutes early to allow for any problems uploading