A study examined the differences in the essay exam scores of college students who did no planning, some planning, or extensive planning before writing answers to questions on essay exams. Subjects, 100 undergraduate education students enrolled in reading methods classes and 37 graduate reading students enrolled in a psychology of reading class, took part in regularly scheduled exams. Directions for the essay part suggested that they plan before writing their answers. The exams were graded and the amount of planning each student did was classified. An Analysis of Variance and follow-up Scheffe were conducted to see if there were differences in the scores achieved by students doing no, some, and extensive planning. Results indicated that students who did some planning scored better than students who did no planning, and students who did extensive planning scored better than students who did no or some planing. A follow-up study is being conducted to see if requiring planning on a second test will improve the scores of those who did no planning on the first test. (Two tables of data are included.) (Author/MG)