When running in otherVM mode, the classpath contains the two directories
System.getProperty("test.classes")
System.getProperty("test.src")

E.g. this program:

/*
 * @test %I% %E%
 * @bug 5555555
 * @summary Explore javatest
 * @author Martin Buchholz
 */

public class Dummy {
    static void printProperty(String p) {
System.out.printf("%s=%s%n", p, System.getProperty(p));
    }
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Throwable {
printProperty("java.class.path");
printProperty("test.src");
printProperty("test.classes");
printProperty("user.dir");
    }
}


gives

----------System.out:(4/255)----------
java.class.path=/u/martin/jct-tools/3.2.2_02/lib/jtreg.jar:/u/martin/ws/ovm/build/solaris-sparc/lib/tools.jar
test.src=/u/martin/src/toy/DummyTest
test.classes=/u/martin/src/toy/DummyTest/JTwork/classes
user.dir=/u/martin/src/toy/DummyTest/JTwork/scratch

in sameVM mode,

while it gives

----------System.out:(4/372)----------
java.class.path=/u/martin/jct-tools/3.2.2_02/lib/javatest.jar:/u/martin/jct-tools/3.2.2_02/lib/jtreg.jar:/u/martin/src/toy/DummyTest/JTwork/classes:/u/martin/src/toy/DummyTest:/u/martin/ws/ovm/build/solaris-sparc/lib/tools.jar
test.src=/u/martin/src/toy/DummyTest
test.classes=/u/martin/src/toy/DummyTest/JTwork/classes
user.dir=/u/martin/src/toy/DummyTest/JTwork/scratch

in regular otherVM mode.

Should be trivial to fix, since whenever javatest invokes itself recursively
to cd to the scratch directory, it must already have values of classpath,
test.src and test.classes, so it merely needs to append to child's classpath.