diff --git a/src/test/resources/log4j2-test.xml b/src/test/resources/log4j2-test.xml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..3c2bcb286
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/test/resources/log4j2-test.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<Configuration status="warn">
+    <Appenders>
+        <Console name="console-log" target="SYSTEM_OUT">
+            <PatternLayout pattern="[%-5level] %d{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS} [%t] %c{1} - %msg%n"/>
+        </Console>
+    </Appenders>
+    <Loggers>
+        <!-- set log levels for individual packages (add or change as needed) -->
+        <Logger name="org.springframework" level="error"/>
+        <Logger name="org.springframework.data.repository" level="error"/>
+        <!-- suppress "expected" error messages to prevent confusion when reading successful test results -->
+        <Logger name="org.fairdatapoint.api.controller.exception" level="fatal"/>
+        <!-- set root level to limit the amount of test output clutter -->
+        <Root level="error">
+            <AppenderRef ref="console-log"/>
+        </Root>
+    </Loggers>
+</Configuration>
diff --git a/src/test/resources/log4j2.xml b/src/test/resources/log4j2.xml
deleted file mode 100644
index 77fa02165..000000000
--- a/src/test/resources/log4j2.xml
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,13 +0,0 @@
-<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
-<Configuration status="WARN">
-    <Appenders>
-        <Console name="console-log" target="SYSTEM_OUT">
-            <PatternLayout pattern="[%-5level] %d{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS} [%t] %c{1} - %msg%n"/>
-        </Console>
-    </Appenders>
-    <Loggers>
-        <!-- <Logger name="org.fairdatapoint.api.controller.exception" level="DEBUG"/> -->
-        <Logger name="org.springframework" level="off"/>
-        <Root level="off"/>
-    </Loggers>
-</Configuration>