diff --git a/S16-io/eof.t b/S16-io/eof.t
index a4e8776dfe..a52d4fe0d7 100644
--- a/S16-io/eof.t
+++ b/S16-io/eof.t
@@ -83,6 +83,8 @@ subtest '.eof on empty files' => {
         subtest "reading from '$p'" => {
             plan 3;
             when not $p.e { skip "don't have '$p' available", 3 }
+            # issue 1533 was all about line-by-line reading, so this skip seems reasonable:
+            when $*KERNEL.name eq 'sunos' { skip "'$p' is a binary file on Solaris", 3 }
             with $p.open {
                 is-deeply .eof, False, 'eof is False before any reads';
                 cmp-ok .get, &[!~~], Nil, '.get reads something';
diff --git a/S29-os/system.t b/S29-os/system.t
index 06eee5347c..4d1da723f8 100644
--- a/S29-os/system.t
+++ b/S29-os/system.t
@@ -103,10 +103,21 @@ throws-like { shell("program_that_does_not_exist_ignore_errors_please.exe") },
 
 subtest "run and shell's :cwd" => {
     plan 4;
+    # So...
+    # `echo $PWD` works *nearly* everywhere, because the shell sets the
+    # environment variable PWD to the current directory on startup.
+    # Except on Solaris, where /bin/sh only sets $PWD to the current directory
+    # if it happens to be / or the user's home directory.
+    # Otherwise it leaves it unchanged.
+    # (Even AIX isn't this nuts. Why is ksh93 so special?)
+    # Which matters to this test, because we (eg MoarVM) call chdir to our temp
+    # directory before we exec the shell, and we don't change PWD in our C
+    # environment.
+    # So use pwd instead. And use `exec pwd` to test that we have run the shell.
     my @run-cmd   = $*DISTRO.is-win ?? ('cmd.exe', '/C', 'echo %CD%')
-                                    !! ('/bin/sh', '-c', 'echo $PWD');
+                                    !! ('/bin/sh', '-c', 'exec pwd');
     my $shell-cmd = $*DISTRO.is-win ?? 'echo %CD%'
-                                    !! 'echo $PWD';
+                                    !! 'exec pwd';
 
     indir (my $cwd = make-temp-dir.absolute), {
         (my $p = run @run-cmd, :!err, :out)