Spring Boot with Gradle failed for task :test?

Adding just the JDBC jar gets spring boot to start trying to do additional configuration (which requires more jars - in this case EventListenerFactory. You should include the jdbc starter to ensure you get all the necessary dependencies for auto configuration:

compile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-jdbc:1.2.7.RELEASE')

Replace 1.2.7 with whatever version of spring boot you are using.