diff --git a/examples/perplexity/perplexity.cpp b/examples/perplexity/perplexity.cpp
index dea694165..dbe445391 100644
--- a/examples/perplexity/perplexity.cpp
+++ b/examples/perplexity/perplexity.cpp
@@ -1991,8 +1991,12 @@ int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
         params.n_batch = std::min(params.n_batch, n_kv);
     } else {
         params.n_batch = std::min(params.n_batch, params.n_ctx);
-        // ensure there's at least enough seq_ids for HellaSwag
-        params.n_parallel = std::max(4, params.n_parallel);
+        if (params.kl_divergence) {
+            params.n_parallel = 1;
+        } else {
+            // ensure there's at least enough seq_ids for HellaSwag
+            params.n_parallel = std::max(4, params.n_parallel);
+        }
     }
 
     if (params.ppl_stride > 0) {