diff --git a/src/cmd/go/internal/work/exec.go b/src/cmd/go/internal/work/exec.go
index 0287af7b3b2..d0f07dec43c 100644
--- a/src/cmd/go/internal/work/exec.go
+++ b/src/cmd/go/internal/work/exec.go
@@ -1036,7 +1036,7 @@ func (b *Builder) vet(a *Action) error {
 		// There's too much unsafe.Pointer code
 		// that vet doesn't like in low-level packages
 		// like runtime, sync, and reflect.
-		vetFlags = []string{"-unsafeptr=false"}
+		vetFlags = append(vetFlags, string("-unsafeptr=false"))
 	}
 
 	// Note: We could decide that vet should compute export data for
diff --git a/src/cmd/go/testdata/script/vet_flags.txt b/src/cmd/go/testdata/script/vet_flags.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..d84c8a6472f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/cmd/go/testdata/script/vet_flags.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+env GO111MODULE=off
+
+# Issue 35837. Verify that "go vet -<analyzer> <std package>" works if 'pwd' is not $GOROOT/src
+# we utilize the package runtime/testdata/testprog as the issue is specific to vetting standard package
+
+go vet -n -unreachable=false runtime/testdata/testprog
+stderr '-unreachable=false'
+stderr '-unsafeptr=false'