diff --git a/lmms_eval/api/samplers.py b/lmms_eval/api/samplers.py
index e0688851..c9084e9b 100644
--- a/lmms_eval/api/samplers.py
+++ b/lmms_eval/api/samplers.py
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 
 class FewShotDataset(object):
-    def __init__(self, dataset=None, *, dataset_path: str = None, dataset_name: str = None, split: str = None, dataset_kwargs: dict = None):
+    def __init__(self, dataset=None, *, dataset_path: str = None, dataset_name: str = None, split: str = None, dataset_kwargs: dict = None, same_as_eval: bool = False):
         if dataset is not None and (dataset_path is not None or dataset_name is not None or split is not None or dataset_kwargs is not None):
             raise ValueError("Cannot provide both `dataset` and other dataset arguments!")
         self.dataset_path = dataset_path
@@ -10,15 +10,22 @@ def __init__(self, dataset=None, *, dataset_path: str = None, dataset_name: str
         self.split = split
         self.dataset = dataset
         self.dataset_kwargs = dataset_kwargs if dataset_kwargs is not None else {}
+        self.same_as_eval = same_as_eval
+        self.fewshot_indices = None
 
-    def get_dataset(self):
+    def get_dataset(self) -> datasets.Dataset:
         if self.dataset is None:
             self.dataset = datasets.load_dataset(path=self.dataset_path, name=self.dataset_name, split=self.split, download_mode=datasets.DownloadMode.REUSE_DATASET_IF_EXISTS, **self.dataset_kwargs)
+            if self.fewshot_indices:
+                self.dataset = self.dataset.select(self.fewshot_indices)
         return self.dataset
 
+    def __getitem__(self, item):
+        return self.get_dataset()[item]
+
 
 class ContextSampler:
-    def __init__(self, docs, task, fewshot_indices=None, rnd=None) -> None:
+    def __init__(self, docs: FewShotDataset, task, fewshot_indices=None, rnd=None) -> None:
         self.rnd = rnd
         assert self.rnd, "must pass rnd to FewShotSampler!"
 
@@ -32,13 +39,13 @@ def __init__(self, docs, task, fewshot_indices=None, rnd=None) -> None:
         self.doc_to_target = self.task.doc_to_target
         self.doc_to_choice = self.task.doc_to_choice
 
-        self.docs = docs  # HF dataset split, provided by task._fewshot_docs()
+        self.docs: FewShotDataset = docs  # HF dataset split, provided by task._fewshot_docs()
         if fewshot_indices:  # subset few-shot docs from
-            self.docs = self.docs.select(fewshot_indices)
+            self.docs.fewshot_indices = fewshot_indices
 
     def get_context(self, doc, num_fewshot):
         # draw an extra fewshot sample if using same split as evaluating on
-        n_samples = num_fewshot + 1 if self.config.fewshot_split == self.config.test_split else num_fewshot
+        n_samples = num_fewshot + 1 if self.docs.same_as_eval else num_fewshot
 
         # draw `n_samples` docs from fewshot_docs
         fewshotex = self.sample(n_samples)
@@ -71,7 +78,7 @@ def sample(self, n):
         Draw `n` samples from our fewshot docs. This method should be overridden by subclasses.
         """
 
-        return self.rnd.sample(self.docs, n)
+        return self.rnd.sample(self.docs.get_dataset(), n)
 
 
 class FirstNSampler(ContextSampler):
diff --git a/lmms_eval/api/task.py b/lmms_eval/api/task.py
index 96139475..2fff7252 100644
--- a/lmms_eval/api/task.py
+++ b/lmms_eval/api/task.py
@@ -312,7 +312,7 @@ def fewshot_docs(self):
         else:
             if self.config.num_fewshot is not None:
                 eval_logger.warning("has_training_docs and has_validation_docs are False" ", using test_docs as fewshot_docs but this is not recommended.")
-            return FewShotDataset(self.test_docs())
+            return FewShotDataset(self.test_docs(), same_as_eval=True)
 
     def _process_doc(self, doc):
         """
@@ -758,11 +758,15 @@ def fewshot_docs(self):
 
         if "fewshot_dataset" in self.config.fewshot_config:
             fewshot_dataset_config = self.config.fewshot_config["fewshot_dataset"]
+            if "dataset_path" not in fewshot_dataset_config:
+                fewshot_dataset_config["dataset_path"] = self.config.dataset_path
+            same_as_eval = self.config.dataset_path == fewshot_dataset_config["dataset_path"] and self.config.dataset_name == fewshot_dataset_config.get("dataset_name", None) and self.config.test_split == fewshot_dataset_config["split"]
             return FewShotDataset(
                 dataset_path=fewshot_dataset_config["dataset_path"],
                 dataset_name=fewshot_dataset_config.get("dataset_name", None),
                 split=fewshot_dataset_config["split"],
                 dataset_kwargs=fewshot_dataset_config.get("dataset_kwargs", {}),
+                same_as_eval=same_as_eval,
             )
         else:
             if (self.config.num_fewshot is not None) and (self.config.num_fewshot > 0):
diff --git a/lmms_eval/tasks/textvqa/_default_template_textvqa_yaml b/lmms_eval/tasks/textvqa/_default_template_textvqa_yaml
index 282b401b..fd485002 100644
--- a/lmms_eval/tasks/textvqa/_default_template_textvqa_yaml
+++ b/lmms_eval/tasks/textvqa/_default_template_textvqa_yaml
@@ -15,3 +15,10 @@ model_specific_prompt_kwargs:
   qwen_vl:
     pre_prompt: ""
     post_prompt: " Answer:"
+fewshot_config:
+  fewshot_sampler: default
+  fewshot_dataset:
+    # dataset_path: lmms-lab/flickr30k
+    # dataset_name: 
+    split: train
+  # random_seed: 1234