diff --git a/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/search/TestNRTManager.java b/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/search/TestNRTManager.java
index e5b729af6a2..38cc749051c 100644
--- a/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/search/TestNRTManager.java
+++ b/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/search/TestNRTManager.java
@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@ import org.apache.lucene.index.IndexDocument;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.IndexReader;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.IndexWriter;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.IndexWriterConfig;
+import org.apache.lucene.index.NoMergePolicy;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.RandomIndexWriter;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.Term;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.ThreadedIndexingAndSearchingTestCase;
@@ -294,6 +295,7 @@ public class TestNRTManager extends ThreadedIndexingAndSearchingTestCase {
    */
   public void testThreadStarvationNoDeleteNRTReader() throws IOException, InterruptedException {
     IndexWriterConfig conf = newIndexWriterConfig(TEST_VERSION_CURRENT, new MockAnalyzer(random()));
+    conf.setMergePolicy(random().nextBoolean() ? NoMergePolicy.COMPOUND_FILES : NoMergePolicy.NO_COMPOUND_FILES);
     Directory d = newDirectory();
     final CountDownLatch latch = new CountDownLatch(1);
     final CountDownLatch signal = new CountDownLatch(1);