You’re not late, but I’m not helpful.

Sorry, I know nothing about the CFA exams. I’ll mention it again: my credentials and my work experience don’t overlap a whole lot. My current job title doesn’t even contain the word “analyst” right now (it does contain “scientist” at least). I’m good at making and breaking models. I’m good at analyzing data. Basically, I’m pretty good at translating numbers into bullshit and finding the numbers to corroborate or contradict bullshit.

I could speculate that the ethics section will be similar to other broker exams. Don’t mix client money with your own money (no, really, this is on every broker exam). Don’t cheat. Use some common sense. That’s ethics exams in three sentences. I’ll assume you have to be able to perform the typical mathematics (interest, linear regression, etc). In general, if you get a problem and they don’t give you all of the information, make the obvious assumptions (e.g. If you have the beta for stock A but not stock B, and the question requires knowing it for stock B, assume it is the same. If it is a short answer instead of multiple choice, state your assumptions). You’ll need to know your basic statistics (well, I hope you do). Also, as with any exam, the textbook answer is correct, even when it isn’t (think VaR, a useful tool for assessing risks only when risk is low). I assume you know all of this and know what to expect far better than I do.

For your post-exam, initial professional career, I would suggest you play to your strengths. I had a fairly well known person from Goldman ask me about VaR once. He was good with numbers, extremely good at trading, but he never bothered to learn VaR models beyond using them as a black box. Also, he had just read Taleb, and was wondering what internal assumptions could break. You could have come straight out of your program and helped him. You would have looked good. Having the current textbook answers is a big strength. Knowing their limitations is gold.