diff --git a/Lib/test/pickletester.py b/Lib/test/pickletester.py
index 267d3f0..2e4c2c1 100644
--- a/Lib/test/pickletester.py
+++ b/Lib/test/pickletester.py
@@ -723,8 +723,8 @@
             self.check_unpickling_error(self.bad_mark_errors, p)
 
     def test_truncated_data(self):
-        self.check_unpickling_error(EOFError, b'')
-        self.check_unpickling_error(EOFError, b'N')
+        self.check_unpickling_error(EOFError, '')
+        self.check_unpickling_error(EOFError, 'N')
         badpickles = [
             'F',                        # FLOAT
             'F0.0',