diff --git a/src/axolotl/prompt_strategies/alpaca_chat.py b/src/axolotl/prompt_strategies/alpaca_chat.py
index 1183c1e8e..6161d7e37 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/prompt_strategies/alpaca_chat.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/prompt_strategies/alpaca_chat.py
@@ -40,6 +40,18 @@ class AlpacaChatPrompter(AlpacaPrompter):
         self.match_prompt_style()
 
 
+class NoSystemPrompter(AlpacaPrompter):
+    """
+    Null Prompter with no system prompts
+    """
+
+    prompt_input = "{instruction} {input} "
+    prompt_no_input = "{instruction} "
+
+    def __init__(self):  # pylint: disable=super-init-not-called
+        pass
+
+
 class AlpacaQAPromptTokenizingStrategy(InstructionPromptTokenizingStrategy):
     """
     Tokenizing strategy for AlpacaQA
diff --git a/src/axolotl/prompt_tokenizers.py b/src/axolotl/prompt_tokenizers.py
index 8b3c88fee..6408620d7 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/prompt_tokenizers.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/prompt_tokenizers.py
@@ -96,25 +96,27 @@ class InstructionPromptTokenizingStrategy(PromptTokenizingStrategy):
             input,  # pylint: disable=redefined-builtin
             response,
         ) = self.parse_instruction_fields(prompt)
-        full_prompt = self._build_full_prompt(instruction, input, response)
-        tokenized_full_prompt = self._tokenize(full_prompt)
-        if not self.train_on_inputs:
-            user_prompt = next(
-                iter(
-                    self.prompter.build_prompt(
-                        instruction,
-                        input,
-                    )
+        user_prompt = next(
+            iter(
+                self.prompter.build_prompt(
+                    instruction,
+                    input,
                 )
             )
-            tokenized_user_prompt = self._tokenize(user_prompt, add_eos_token=False)
-            user_prompt_len = len(tokenized_user_prompt["input_ids"])
+        )
+        tokenized_prompt = self._tokenize(user_prompt, add_eos_token=False)
+        if not self.train_on_inputs:
+            user_prompt_len = len(tokenized_prompt["input_ids"])
             # TODO this could be sped up using numpy array slicing
-            tokenized_full_prompt["labels"] = [
-                -100
-            ] * user_prompt_len + tokenized_full_prompt["labels"][user_prompt_len:]
+            tokenized_prompt["labels"] = [-100] * user_prompt_len
+        tokenized_res_prompt = self._tokenize(
+            response, strip_bos_token=True, add_eos_token=True
+        )
+        tokenized_prompt["input_ids"] += tokenized_res_prompt["input_ids"]
+        tokenized_prompt["attention_mask"] += tokenized_res_prompt["attention_mask"]
+        tokenized_prompt["labels"] += tokenized_res_prompt["input_ids"]
 
-        return tokenized_full_prompt
+        return tokenized_prompt
 
     def _build_full_prompt(
         self, instruction, input, response  # pylint: disable=redefined-builtin
diff --git a/tests/test_prompt_tokenizers.py b/tests/test_prompt_tokenizers.py
index 89209e84f..abc746bbf 100644
--- a/tests/test_prompt_tokenizers.py
+++ b/tests/test_prompt_tokenizers.py
@@ -6,8 +6,12 @@ from pathlib import Path
 
 from transformers import AutoTokenizer
 
-from axolotl.prompt_tokenizers import ShareGPTPromptTokenizingStrategy
-from axolotl.prompters import ShareGPTPrompter
+from axolotl.prompt_strategies.alpaca_chat import NoSystemPrompter
+from axolotl.prompt_tokenizers import (
+    AlpacaPromptTokenizingStrategy,
+    ShareGPTPromptTokenizingStrategy,
+)
+from axolotl.prompters import AlpacaPrompter, ShareGPTPrompter
 
 logging.basicConfig(level="INFO")
 
@@ -29,7 +33,6 @@ class TestPromptTokenizationStrategies(unittest.TestCase):
         )
 
     def test_sharegpt_integration(self):
-        print(Path(__file__).parent)
         with open(
             Path(__file__).parent / "fixtures/conversation.json", encoding="utf-8"
         ) as fin:
@@ -53,6 +56,43 @@ class TestPromptTokenizationStrategies(unittest.TestCase):
             self.assertEqual(len(example[fields]), len(tokenized_conversation[fields]))
             self.assertEqual(example[fields], tokenized_conversation[fields])
 
+    def test_completion(self):
+        """
+        tests the interface between the user and assistant parts
+        """
+        prompter = NoSystemPrompter()
+        strat = AlpacaPromptTokenizingStrategy(
+            prompter,
+            self.tokenizer,
+            False,
+            2048,
+        )
+        sample = {
+            "instruction": "hello cruel. lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.",
+            "output": "world!",
+        }
+        example = strat.tokenize_prompt(sample)
+        world_idx = example["input_ids"].index(3186)
+        assert example["labels"][world_idx] == 3186
+        assert example["labels"][world_idx - 1] == -100
+
+    def test_alpaca(self):
+        """
+        tests the interface between the user and assistant parts
+        """
+        prompter = AlpacaPrompter()
+        strat = AlpacaPromptTokenizingStrategy(
+            prompter,
+            self.tokenizer,
+            False,
+            2048,
+        )
+        sample = {"instruction": "hello!", "output": "Hi! How can I help?"}
+        example = strat.tokenize_prompt(sample)
+        world_idx = example["input_ids"].index(6324)
+        assert example["labels"][world_idx] == 6324
+        assert example["labels"][world_idx - 1] == -100
+
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     unittest.main()