Professional skepticism can best be defined as having:

A) An inquiring mind and deliberate decision making.

B) Deliberate decision making and suspension of belief.

C) An inquiring mind and suspension of belief.

D) Careful observation and virtue-based decision making.

A. An inquiring mind and suspension of belief is the correct answer.

Explanation:

Professional skepticism is an inquiring mind that includes critical evaluation, questioning, and staying alert to situations that may indicate possible error because of fraud and mismanagement and also an important evaluation of audit data. The elements of professional skepticism are questioning mind, autonomy, suspension of knowledge, interpersonal judgment, search for information, and self-esteem. Professional skepticism performs an important role in the audit and we need professional skepticism to maintain an audit of the expectation.