Is 300 hours really enough to pass CFA Level 1?

The 300 hours is a median across all candidates. The actual range is wide.

Rough guide based on background:

• Finance or accounting degree, recent: 200 to 300 hours can be enough.
• STEM or business degree with no accounting: 300 to 400 hours is typical.
• Non-finance background (engineering, sciences, humanities): 400 to 500 hours is realistic. The Financial Reporting and Analysis section alone often takes such candidates 80 hours.
• Returning candidate who failed previously: depends on which topics you failed and how recently you studied.

The number matters less than the quality of the hours. A candidate who spends 250 hours doing reading, EOC questions, weak-topic re-reads, and four mocks usually outperforms one who spends 450 hours reading passively without practice. The mocks are where most of the gain happens in the last 30 days.

Track your hours by topic rather than total. If you have spent 60 hours on Quant Methods but only 20 hours on Fixed Income three weeks before the exam, the balance is off regardless of total hours logged.