The thing to know about tick marks is that they are NOT universal symbols. In our office, each auditor has their own tick marks. I generally do not put tick marks in my own work papers, but when I do independent referencing for another auditor, I put my tick marks in their work papers.
For example, if I recompute something in a spreadsheet (i.e. go back to source documents and determine the value of something based on rates, etc.), then I place a check mark in that cell to show that I've done that. If I am just checking their formulas, I'll use a different check mark. In our work papers, we normally put a table in where we define the meaning of each tick mark, but again, its auditor specific (not universal symbols). A tick mark in our work papers serves also as a quality control mark for when we have peer reviews (the peer reviewer can see that the work papers were adequately reviewed before an audit report was released).
I'm using Becker material and looked over their tick marks readings. The example they used had a lot more tick marks than I typically use. However, the idea is the same. For example, if you look at a spreadsheet and see a tick mark at the bottom of a column, you can guess that the tick mark represents that the auditor footed the cell (summed all of the cells above it). Likewise, if a cell at the end of a row has a different tick mark, then I would think that the tick mark represents that the auditor cross-footed (summed the cells together across the row).
So in the simulations for tick marks, you are just trying to decipher what the tick mark might mean. You can look for clues by what the amount in the cell might relate to, or if it appears to be an item that would need to be verified/confirmed with an outside document.
Hope this makes sense.
REG - Nov 4, 2013: 88
FAR - Feb 27, 2014: 86
AUD - April 5, 2014: 91
BEC - May 6, 2014: 83
Florida CPA 24 July 2014
(Done in seven months - thank you Jesus!!)
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