As you prepare for the CIA Exam, it is important to be familiar with the types of multiple-choice questions you will find on the exam. During your preparations, it is good to develop a strategy for answering all 100 multiple-choice questions.
Multiple-choice questions consist of a stem (the question) and four answer choices. Usually one answer is correct and three answer choices are incorrect. Another view is that there is one answer choice that is the best response to the question stem.
Even though The IIA recommends that stems avoid negative phrasing, some multiple-choice questions contain words like except, not, unless, least, etc., as illustrated below.
“Which of the following is not included in the statement of scope in an engagement final communication?”
“Which one of the following elements of an assurance engagement is not always required?”
These negative stems ask for the false answer choice, which is accompanied by three true answer choices. Expect a few multiple-choice questions with negative stems on the exam. Presumably, The IIA will print these negative words in bold type, as illustrated above.
Next week we will discuss less traditional multiple-choice questions. Keep practicing multiple-choice questions in the CIA Gleim Online Course and CIA Test Prep Software, both are components of the Gleim CIA Review System, to get used to all the question types you will find on the CIA Exam.