diff --git a/test/server.js b/test/server.js
index e529f2c..262b638 100644
--- a/test/server.js
+++ b/test/server.js
@@ -189,7 +189,8 @@ TestServer.prototype.router = function(req, res) {
 		res.statusCode = 200;
 		res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/html');
 		res.setHeader('Transfer-Encoding', 'chunked');
-		var padding = 'a'.repeat(120);
+		// because node v0.12 doesn't have str.repeat
+		var padding = new Array(120 + 1).join('a');
 		for (var i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
 			res.write(padding);
 		}
diff --git a/test/test.js b/test/test.js
index 1d98b70..1a7fe08 100644
--- a/test/test.js
+++ b/test/test.js
@@ -730,7 +730,8 @@ describe('node-fetch', function() {
 		url = base + '/encoding/chunked';
 		return fetch(url).then(function(res) {
 			expect(res.status).to.equal(200);
-			var padding = 'a'.repeat(10);
+			// because node v0.12 doesn't have str.repeat
+			var padding = new Array(10 + 1).join('a');
 			return res.text().then(function(result) {
 				expect(result).to.equal(padding + '<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Shift_JIS" /><div>日本語</div>');
 			});
@@ -741,7 +742,8 @@ describe('node-fetch', function() {
 		url = base + '/encoding/invalid';
 		return fetch(url).then(function(res) {
 			expect(res.status).to.equal(200);
-			var padding = 'a'.repeat(1200);
+			// because node v0.12 doesn't have str.repeat
+			var padding = new Array(1200 + 1).join('a');
 			return res.text().then(function(result) {
 				expect(result).to.not.equal(padding + '中文');
 			});