I think in your shoes I would take a sample exam first. Doesn't really matter, IMO, if it's timed like it would be for real, but you have to take it blind (no peeking/looking up answers). Maybe mark the questions you weren't sure about as you go, so even if you get them right you know you had some uncertainty. The goal of this is to create "hooks" in your mind for information to catch on to as you read/study. It's best if you can generalize away from the specific questions. I don't know what is covered on a finance exam, but if it was high school chemistry and the question was on, say, double-replacement reactions, you could conclude you need to know all the kinds of reaction types (not just double-replacement). If you get most of the answers right, congratulations, you barely need to review! Look up just the topics you weren't sure about or missed. If you don't, perhaps you need a more cover-to-cover approach.
Then read, and take notes (by hand), on all the topics you need to cover. I've personally never found any strategies to be very helpful. I think in my experience the main purpose of notes, especially from reading, is to force my brain to process the information rather than just skim over it. I have looked back on them after but not very frequently, because I can usually remember stuff I wrote down. If you are reading test prep materials, they may be quite dense in information and you might feel like you're copying out the book; I think that's fine if that's what it is; just don't do full sentences, use some kind of shorthand (+ or & for "and", -> for "leads to/causes", that kind of thing). Whereas in another source, you might be most interested in the key points/conclusions, and only read the supporting arguments to convince yourself.
If the material you are using has section/chapter questions or topics, use those to guide yourself. Look for the answers to those questions and write them down when you get to them. If there are questions or problems at the end, do at least some of those; maybe the quick, short answer/recall ones, and a few that look hard (if applicable).
Definitions and facts lend themselves to flash cards; make a deck (real or virtual) of these as you read and go through them a couple times a day, before bed, etc. Processes, like solution methods for problems, don't lend themselves as well to this. I think the best way to learn processes is to use them. Solve lots of problems; not sure what this looks like for finance but basically anything more complex than a few-word answer--an argument, explanation, working with data?
Finally, re-test yourself, maybe timed this time. If you have more sample tests than you could ever get through, you could do this throughout the study process. If you only have a couple, might make sense to reserve a few for testing yourself at the end, to really catch any gaps after you've covered as much as possible.
Hope that helps! Good luck!!