Using a case-study approach, interviews with four final-year psychology students showed different approaches to learning and varying experiences of teaching in courses assessed through open-book exams. Analysis of their experiences, supported by previous research findings, provided insights into the reasons for the contrasting approaches being adopted. Some students reported misperceptions of the purpose of the open-book format and failed, but a changed perception of the assessment, later on, made them more aware of having to adopt a deep approach. In other cases, perceptions of teaching, and of the tutor, played an important part in the students' readiness to develop a personal understanding, bringing in both cognitive and affective influences. In our sample, we found evidence that teaching-learning experiences involving feelings of acceptance and encouragement, with mutual respect of each other's thinking and reasoning, could provide students with the freedom and confidence necessary to develop academically valid, personal understandings through a "meeting of minds." Where such respect and encouragement was lacking, the pursuit of personal understanding was curtailed, and passing exams seemed to become the main concern.