diff --git a/Lib/test/test_sys.py b/Lib/test/test_sys.py
index 48336b4..9aafbbc 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_sys.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_sys.py
@@ -161,6 +161,18 @@
         else:
             self.fail("no exception")
 
+        # test that the exit machinery handles SystemExits properly
+        import subprocess
+        # both unnormalized...
+        rc = subprocess.call([sys.executable, "-c",
+                              "raise SystemExit, 46"])
+        self.assertEqual(rc, 46)
+        # ... and normalized
+        rc = subprocess.call([sys.executable, "-c",
+                              "raise SystemExit(47)"])
+        self.assertEqual(rc, 47)
+        
+            
     def test_getdefaultencoding(self):
         if test.test_support.have_unicode:
             self.assertRaises(TypeError, sys.getdefaultencoding, 42)