Can someone please explain what ‘ethics adjustment’ is?

Simply that if a candidate’s exam score is borderline, their performance on the Ethics section will be used to determine whether they pass or fail.

From the horse’s mouth (via @christine ‘s article on the homepage here):

What is the “ethics adjustment”?

The Board of Governors instituted a policy to place particular
emphasis on ethics. Starting with the 1996 exams, the performance on the
ethics section became a factor in the pass/fail decision for candidates
whose total scores bordered the minimum passing score. The ethics
adjustment can have a positive or negative impact on these candidates’
final results.

CFA Institute has a policy of not releasing either the minimum
passing score or individual candidate scores. Consequently, CFA
Institute does not release specific information about the ethics
adjustment or the candidates who were affected. The adjustment has had a
net positive effect on candidate scores (and thus pass rates) in most
exam sessions. The published pass rates always take into account the
ethics adjustment for borderline candidates.

I wanted to ask this as well.

I’m assuming CFAI doesn’t make it known what is ‘borderline’ (1 question? 2?) Or how ‘well’ do you have to do to benefit from the ethics adjustment?

As it’s just an ‘adjustment’ technically can you score zero in ethics as long as you score enough in others? (I’m not planning on doing this btw lol)

And does this apply to every level?

Thanks jasdev, you da man.