The manner in which aging affects the utilization of monitoring in the allocation of study time was investigated by having adults learn paired associates during two study-recall tests. First participants learned the 40 critical cue-target pairs. Then they had to recall the target of each pair and make a feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgment. Finally, they studied the 40 cue-target pairs on a self-paced study trial and then recalled the items. A total of 24 elderly adults and 23 young adults served as participants. The results indicated that every group of subjects allocated their self-paced study time partly in accordance with their FOK judgments, with items higher in FOK receiving less self-paced study time. The magnitude of this relationship was significantly different in young and old subjects. Moreover, age-related differences in the allocation of study time accounted for the age-related differences in memory performance.