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This article reports a case study of studentsattending a fee-paying private tutorial school in Hong Kong in2009–2010. They were retaking the Year 11 English languagepublic examination, attempting to improve grades obtained in2008–2009. The mainly qualitative study extends an earlierquantitative study (Coniam Recent developments in Englishlanguage education and assessment: Hong Kong and main-land China. Springer, New York, in press) that investigatedimprovements in examination retake results by a sample of200 students. Via a purposive sample of 17 semi-structuredinterviews with participants from the previous study, taughtby the same teacher, the current study investigates the edu-cational and assessment perspectives of student examinationre-takers. Respondents were positive about various aspects oftheir tutorial school and commented favourably on theirexperiences compared with those at previously attendedgovernment-supported schools. They were positive about thegreater freedom experienced in the tutorial school over non-compulsory attendance and flexible lesson scheduling. Inaddition, they valued the examination-oriented teaching in thetutorial school. Contradictorily, however, overall, studentsappear to prefer to study at a government-supported school.