diff --git a/pandas/tests/indexing/test_iloc.py b/pandas/tests/indexing/test_iloc.py
index 85eab91af3c48..c3ba5c0545b8b 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/indexing/test_iloc.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/indexing/test_iloc.py
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
 import pandas as pd
 from pandas import DataFrame, Series, concat, date_range, isna
 from pandas.api.types import is_scalar
+from pandas.core.indexing import IndexingError
 from pandas.tests.indexing.common import Base
 from pandas.util import testing as tm
 
@@ -722,7 +723,7 @@ def test_iloc_mask(self):
                         else:
                             accessor = df
                         ans = str(bin(accessor[mask]["nums"].sum()))
-                    except Exception as e:
+                    except (ValueError, IndexingError, NotImplementedError) as e:
                         ans = str(e)
 
                     key = tuple([idx, method])
diff --git a/pandas/tests/io/pytables/test_pytables.py b/pandas/tests/io/pytables/test_pytables.py
index 856d97e29f2c0..ae604b1141204 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/io/pytables/test_pytables.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/io/pytables/test_pytables.py
@@ -37,7 +37,6 @@
 import pandas.util.testing as tm
 from pandas.util.testing import assert_frame_equal, assert_series_equal, set_timezone
 
-from pandas.io.formats.printing import pprint_thing
 from pandas.io.pytables import (
     ClosedFileError,
     HDFStore,
@@ -3415,14 +3414,9 @@ def test_string_select(self):
             expected = df[df.x == "none"]
             assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
 
-            try:
-                result = store.select("df", "x!=none")
-                expected = df[df.x != "none"]
-                assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
-            except Exception as detail:
-                pprint_thing("[{0}]".format(detail))
-                pprint_thing(store)
-                pprint_thing(expected)
+            result = store.select("df", "x!=none")
+            expected = df[df.x != "none"]
+            assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
 
             df2 = df.copy()
             df2.loc[df2.x == "", "x"] = np.nan
diff --git a/pandas/util/testing.py b/pandas/util/testing.py
index af726caa52e88..aee58f808d9e6 100644
--- a/pandas/util/testing.py
+++ b/pandas/util/testing.py
@@ -9,7 +9,6 @@
 from shutil import rmtree
 import string
 import tempfile
-import traceback
 from typing import Union, cast
 import warnings
 import zipfile
@@ -2291,10 +2290,7 @@ def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):
                     " and error {error}".format(error=e)
                 )
 
-            try:
-                e_str = traceback.format_exc(e)
-            except Exception:
-                e_str = str(e)
+            e_str = str(e)
 
             if any(m.lower() in e_str.lower() for m in _skip_on_messages):
                 skip(