diff --git a/tests/CrawlerProcess/sleeping.py b/tests/CrawlerProcess/sleeping.py
index 45479ea4f..cb8f869e1 100644
--- a/tests/CrawlerProcess/sleeping.py
+++ b/tests/CrawlerProcess/sleeping.py
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+import sys
+
 from twisted.internet.defer import Deferred
 
 import scrapy
@@ -14,7 +16,7 @@ class SleepingSpider(scrapy.Spider):
         from twisted.internet import reactor
 
         d = Deferred()
-        reactor.callLater(int(self.sleep), d.callback, None)
+        reactor.callLater(int(sys.argv[1]), d.callback, None)
         await maybe_deferred_to_future(d)
 
 
diff --git a/tests/test_crawler.py b/tests/test_crawler.py
index 6c465f000..efb346dde 100644
--- a/tests/test_crawler.py
+++ b/tests/test_crawler.py
@@ -890,7 +890,7 @@ class TestCrawlerProcessSubprocess(ScriptRunnerMixin, unittest.TestCase):
 
     def test_shutdown_graceful(self):
         sig = signal.SIGINT if sys.platform != "win32" else signal.SIGBREAK
-        args = self.get_script_args("sleeping.py", "-a", "sleep=3")
+        args = self.get_script_args("sleeping.py", "3")
         p = PopenSpawn(args, timeout=5)
         p.expect_exact("Spider opened")
         p.expect_exact("Crawled (200)")
@@ -904,7 +904,7 @@ class TestCrawlerProcessSubprocess(ScriptRunnerMixin, unittest.TestCase):
         from twisted.internet import reactor
 
         sig = signal.SIGINT if sys.platform != "win32" else signal.SIGBREAK
-        args = self.get_script_args("sleeping.py", "-a", "sleep=10")
+        args = self.get_script_args("sleeping.py", "10")
         p = PopenSpawn(args, timeout=5)
         p.expect_exact("Spider opened")
         p.expect_exact("Crawled (200)")