CIMA E3 Strategic Management Exam Prep Course (Premium File)
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Question 291:

• Correct answer: B. focus the team on internal controls.

• A: Providing solutions for control weaknesses is not the facilitator’s main role; solutions typically come from the team or auditors after the assessment.
• C: Reporting on weaknesses is generally done by the CSA team or management after findings are developed.
• D: Conducting interviews to gain background information is part of data gathering, but not the primary role—the focus should remain on controls throughout the CSA.

Question 287:

• Correct answer: D

• Why: The lack of a formal recertification process means inventory data may become stale and inaccurate over time. Without periodic verification, ownership, statuses, risk rankings, and contact details can change, undermining asset management, compliance, and change control.

• Why not the others:

• Takeaway: For an IT asset inventory, implementing a formal recertification process is key to maintaining accurate, up-to-date data and effective governance.

Question 286:

• Correct answer: B

• Why: The post-implementation review should verify that the system satisfies the business requirements. UAT results show whether users validated that the system meets their needs, and sign-off from users provides formal evidence that the requirements have been met.

• Why not the others:

• Takeaway: In post-implementation reviews, evidence of requirement fulfillment from end users (UAT results and sign-off) is the most direct indication that the application meets business needs.

Question 257:

• Correct answer: Corrective

• Why: The algorithm analyzes traffic to identify spam and then quarantines those emails to contain the threat. This action occurs after detection and serves to remediate and limit impact, which aligns with a corrective control.

Question 249:
The correct answer is Risk assessment (option C).

• In the annual audit planning process, a risk assessment is required to identify and evaluate risks across the organization. This forms the basis for determining audit scope, priorities, and resource allocation.
• It helps the auditor focus on high-risk areas and align the audit plan with organizational objectives and risk tolerance.
• Why not the others:

Question 209:

• Correct answer: A. Determine the model elements to be evaluated.

• Why: When implementing an IT maturity model, you must first define the scope—which elements (process areas, governance, people, technology, etc.) will be evaluated. This establishes what you will measure and how results will be interpreted.

• Why the others aren’t first:

Question 198:
Question 198 asks about the greatest concern in an operational audit of a biometric system used for physical access.

• Answer: False positives.

• A false positive (false acceptance) means an unauthorized person is granted access, directly compromising security.
• A false negative (false rejection) mainly causes user denial and operational disruption, not a direct security breach.
• User acceptance and training affect usability, not the core security risk.

• Look at the biometric system’s error rates: FAR (false acceptance rate) vs FRR (false rejection rate).
• Auditors should assess control effectiveness, enrollment quality, anti-spoofing measures, and access logging to reduce FAR.

• Tighten thresholds, implement multi-factor authentication, enhance anti-spoofing, and ensure robust auditing of access events.

Question 164:
Answer: D. The job completes with invalid data.
Reason:

• If a high-priority update runs out of sequence, updates may apply in the wrong order or overwrite each other, resulting in data integrity problems. This directly leads to invalid or corrupted data, which is the most significant risk.

• A: Daily schedules lacking change control is a governance issue but not the immediate data integrity risk shown by out-of-sequence execution.
• B: Previous jobs may have failed could be true, but out-of-sequence indicates a concrete data integrity problem rather than just prior failures.
• C: The job may not have run to completion is possible, but out-of-sequence typically implies data correctness is compromised once it finishes.

Question 163:
Answer: C. Reviewing the last compile date of production programs
Reason:

• In an environment that logs all program changes, unauthorized modifications to production code are likely to trigger a new compilation. The most efficient automatic indicator of such changes is the last compile date/time, which can reveal tampering quickly.

• Periodically running and reviewing test data against production programs checks data integrity, not code changes, so it may miss code tampering.
• Verifying user management approval of modifications is preventive, not detectively efficient for post-change detection.
• Manually comparing code in production programs to controlled copies is labor-intensive and error-prone; not scalable in a live environment.

Question 105:

• Answer: B. Reconciliation of total amounts by project.

• When data are entered from Spreadsheets into the job-costing system, reconciling the total amounts by project verifies that the sum of line items matches the reported total in the system. This cross-check catches transcription errors or miskeyed totals and confirms data integrity across the data entry boundary.

• A) Display back of project detail after entry helps verification, but does not ensure that the overall totals reconcile with the source data.
• C) Reasonableness checks for each cost type can catch implausible values but may miss errors where all values are individually plausible.
• D) Validity checks preventing character data stop non-numeric entries but do not ensure the entered totals align with the source spreadsheet.

• This is a cross-check control aimed at ensuring data integrity during manual data transfer from spreadsheets to an accounting/cost system.