diff --git a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/scheduler/TaskSetManager.scala b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/scheduler/TaskSetManager.scala
index 0ac982909c0291f21eb79c1207b397eb8e397a49..aa3fb0b35a6cf0adbce797e093a3138c5a4b874e 100644
--- a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/scheduler/TaskSetManager.scala
+++ b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/scheduler/TaskSetManager.scala
@@ -540,7 +540,7 @@ private[spark] class TaskSetManager(
         if (numFailures(index) >= maxTaskFailures) {
           logError("Task %s:%d failed %d times; aborting job".format(
             taskSet.id, index, maxTaskFailures))
-          abort("Task %s:%d failed more than %d times (most recent failure: %s)".format(
+          abort("Task %s:%d failed %d times (most recent failure: %s)".format(
             taskSet.id, index, maxTaskFailures, failureReason))
         }
       }
diff --git a/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/FailureSuite.scala b/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/FailureSuite.scala
index af448fcb37a1f2676ea2a68e8b5f48f6c492e609..befdc1589f009de6c16e53280f9725bd25d1ccf2 100644
--- a/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/FailureSuite.scala
+++ b/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/FailureSuite.scala
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ class FailureSuite extends FunSuite with LocalSparkContext {
   // Run a 3-task map job in which task 1 deterministically fails once, and check
   // whether the job completes successfully and we ran 4 tasks in total.
   test("failure in a single-stage job") {
-    sc = new SparkContext("local[1,1]", "test")
+    sc = new SparkContext("local[1,2]", "test")
     val results = sc.makeRDD(1 to 3, 3).map { x =>
       FailureSuiteState.synchronized {
         FailureSuiteState.tasksRun += 1
@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ class FailureSuite extends FunSuite with LocalSparkContext {
 
   // Run a map-reduce job in which a reduce task deterministically fails once.
   test("failure in a two-stage job") {
-    sc = new SparkContext("local[1,1]", "test")
+    sc = new SparkContext("local[1,2]", "test")
     val results = sc.makeRDD(1 to 3).map(x => (x, x)).groupByKey(3).map {
       case (k, v) =>
         FailureSuiteState.synchronized {
diff --git a/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/SparkContextSchedulerCreationSuite.scala b/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/SparkContextSchedulerCreationSuite.scala
index 9deed568ac5091ced9807af1fd44d646a8fda46e..f28d5c7b133b379ba8375dba8d9eded4b7eedf20 100644
--- a/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/SparkContextSchedulerCreationSuite.scala
+++ b/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/SparkContextSchedulerCreationSuite.scala
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ class SparkContextSchedulerCreationSuite
 
   test("local-n") {
     val sched = createTaskScheduler("local[5]")
-    assert(sched.maxTaskFailures === 0)
+    assert(sched.maxTaskFailures === 1)
     sched.backend match {
       case s: LocalBackend => assert(s.totalCores === 5)
       case _ => fail()
diff --git a/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/scheduler/TaskResultGetterSuite.scala b/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/scheduler/TaskResultGetterSuite.scala
index 2265619570590dba7b9d472c19bfde9950357d29..ca97f7d2a5be6fa979e2f7f656834ed0bef80ac7 100644
--- a/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/scheduler/TaskResultGetterSuite.scala
+++ b/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/scheduler/TaskResultGetterSuite.scala
@@ -89,7 +89,7 @@ class TaskResultGetterSuite extends FunSuite with BeforeAndAfter with BeforeAndA
   test("task retried if result missing from block manager") {
     // Set the maximum number of task failures to > 0, so that the task set isn't aborted
     // after the result is missing.
-    sc = new SparkContext("local[1,1]", "test")
+    sc = new SparkContext("local[1,2]", "test")
     // If this test hangs, it's probably because no resource offers were made after the task
     // failed.
     val scheduler: TaskSchedulerImpl = sc.taskScheduler match {