diff --git a/scrapy/spiders/__init__.py b/scrapy/spiders/__init__.py
index 0c7eefc3e..e2a08aa5d 100644
--- a/scrapy/spiders/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/spiders/__init__.py
@@ -15,6 +15,9 @@ from scrapy.exceptions import ScrapyDeprecationWarning
 from scrapy.utils.deprecate import method_is_overridden
 
 
+def __flatten(list_):
+    return (item for sublist in list_ for item in sublist)
+
 class Spider(object_ref):
     """Base class for scrapy spiders. All spiders must inherit from this
     class.
@@ -83,11 +86,8 @@ class Spider(object_ref):
                 yield Request(url, dont_filter=True)
 
     def start_requests_with_control(self):
-        for r in self.start_requests():
-            yield r
-
-            if r != signals.WaitUntilQueueEmpty:
-                yield signals.WaitUntilQueueEmpty
+        gen_ = ((r, signals.WaitUntilQueueEmpty) if r != signals.WaitUntilQueueEmpty else (r,) for r in self.start_requests())
+        return __flatten(gen_)
 
     def make_requests_from_url(self, url):
         """ This method is deprecated. """
diff --git a/tests/test_crawl.py b/tests/test_crawl.py
index 14d6067dd..d5babdded 100644
--- a/tests/test_crawl.py
+++ b/tests/test_crawl.py
@@ -240,7 +240,7 @@ with multiples lines
             pass
 
         class FaultySpider(SimpleSpider):
-            def start_requests_with_control(self):
+            def start_requests(self):
                 raise TestError
 
         crawler = self.runner.create_crawler(FaultySpider)