diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/mm/run_vmtests.sh b/tools/testing/selftests/mm/run_vmtests.sh
index 333c468c2699..da7e26668103 100755
--- a/tools/testing/selftests/mm/run_vmtests.sh
+++ b/tools/testing/selftests/mm/run_vmtests.sh
@@ -220,7 +220,7 @@ run_test() {
 	if test_selected ${CATEGORY}; then
 		# On memory constrainted systems some tests can fail to allocate hugepages.
 		# perform some cleanup before the test for a higher success rate.
-		if [ ${CATEGORY} == "thp" ] | [ ${CATEGORY} == "hugetlb" ]; then
+		if [ ${CATEGORY} == "thp" -o ${CATEGORY} == "hugetlb" ]; then
 			echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
 			sleep 2
 			echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/compact_memory