Professional skepticism is an important necessary condition to perform an effective audit. For each of the following two conditions, describe steps that the auditor should take to help better establish a state of mind consistent with professional skepticism.

a. You are a new auditor for a firm, having just graduated from a local university. Your first client is in the pharmaceutical industry. You remember attending several on-campus demonstrations by students groups accusing the industry of unethical practices. Accordingly, you decide that you will work extra hard to uncover unethical acts by the client.

b. You are beginning your third consecutive year on an audit engagement of a large manufacturing conglomerate. During your three years on the engagement, you have become impressed by the apparent integrity of the accounting managers and the controller. You have never encountered a situation where their responses to your questions were not truthful or transparent. You believe that you can conduct an efficient audit this year based on being able to trust their assertions.