Developmental differences in two components of allocation of study time were examined: (1) allocating more time to more difficult material (that is, differential allocation) and (2) allocating sufficient time to meet the recall goal (sufficient allocation). In order to make the task simple enough for young children, "easy" and "hard" booklets of, respectively, highly related and unrelated paired-associate line drawings were used. A total of 128 children in grades 1, 3, 5, and 7 were asked to study one easy and one hard booklet of paired-associate items within the context of a self-terminated study procedure. Following two self-terminated trials, children were asked questions to assess their knowledge related to allocating study time. Results revealed that while children in grades 1 and 3 spent approximately the same amount of time on hard pairs as easy pairs, children in grades 5 and 7 spent a greater amount of time on hard pairs than easy pairs. Age-related improvement was found in allocation of sufficient time, as evidenced by increased recall scores in higher grades, along with an increase in the number of children who actually met the recall goal; however, many, including the older children, were not entirely successful at meeting the recall goal. It is concluded that observed age-related differences in aspects of metacognition may account, in part, for the developmental differences in allocation of study time. (RH)