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ACCA Strategic Professional · Advanced Audit and Assurance (International) · Evidence and testing considerations

Kestrel & Co is auditing the receivables ledger of Marlow Ltd. The auditor wants every item in the population to have a known, equal chance of selection, using random number tables to pick invoice numbers. Which sampling method is this?

This is random selection. Using random number tables or generators gives every population item a known, equal chance of selection, which ISA 530 recognises as a statistical-compatible selection method, unlike haphazard, block or fixed-interval systematic selection.

  1. ARandom selectionCorrect
  2. BSystematic selection
  3. CHaphazard selection
  4. DBlock selection

Explanation

Under ISA 530, random selection (for example using random number tables or generators) gives each item in the population an equal chance of being selected. Systematic selection uses a fixed interval from a random start. Haphazard selection has no structured technique, and block selection takes contiguous items, so these do not match the description.

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