BCBA practice exam and retake planner
Original practice questions mapped to the BCBA 6th edition outline, with an explanation for every option. Built for candidates preparing to retake.
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Sample question · Concepts and Principles · task B.1
During math instruction, Mia sometimes tears her worksheet, sometimes pushes materials off the desk, and sometimes says "I'm done!" A functional analysis shows that each of these behaviors reliably ends the math task. How should the BCBA best classify these three behaviors?
- A. Three instances of a single response
- B. A functional response class
- C. A behavioral cusp
- D. A stimulus class
Show the answer and why each option is right or wrong
- A. Incorrect. A response is one specific instance of behavior; these are three different topographies, not one instance.
- B. Correct. Responses that differ in form but produce the same effect on the environment (escaping math) make up a functional response class.
- C. Incorrect. A behavioral cusp is a behavior change that gives the learner access to new environments and contingencies. Nothing here suggests that.
- D. Incorrect. A stimulus class is a group of antecedent or consequent stimuli, not a group of the learner's behaviors.
Reference: Cooper et al. ch. 2
What you get
- A diagnostic weighted like the real exam. Questions are spread across the 9 content areas in the same proportions as the 6th edition outline.
- A retake plan. Enter your result in each area from your score report, and get a day-by-day plan that starts with the areas worth the most marks. Try the planner.
- An explanation for every option. Not just the right answer, but why each wrong answer is wrong.
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Why retaking is hard right now
In 2025, 51% of first-time BCBA candidates passed, the lowest rate on record, and only 23% of retake attempts passed. Source: BACB examination pass-rate data.
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Every content area and task we cover
- Behaviorism and Philosophical Foundations 5% of the exam
- A.1: Identify the goals of behavior analysis as a science (i.e., description, prediction, control).
- A.2: Explain the philosophical assumptions underlying the science of behavior analysis (e.g., selectionism, determinism, empiricism, parsimony, pragmatism).
- A.3: Explain behavior from the perspective of radical behaviorism.
- A.4: Distinguish among behaviorism, the experimental analysis of behavior, applied behavior analysis, and professional practice guided by the science of behavior analysis.
- A.5: Identify and describe dimensions of applied behavior analysis.
- Concepts and Principles 14% of the exam
- B.1: Identify and distinguish among behavior, response, and response class.
- B.2: Identify and distinguish between stimulus and stimulus class.
- B.3: Identify and distinguish between respondent and operant conditioning.
- B.4: Identify and distinguish between positive and negative reinforcement contingencies.
- B.5: Identify and distinguish between positive and negative punishment contingencies.
- B.6: Identify and distinguish between automatic and socially mediated contingencies.
- B.7: Identify and distinguish among unconditioned, conditioned, and generalized reinforcers.
- B.8: Identify and distinguish among unconditioned, conditioned, and generalized punishers.
- B.9: Identify and distinguish among simple schedules of reinforcement.
- B.10: Identify and distinguish among concurrent, multiple, mixed, and chained schedules of reinforcement.
- B.11: Identify and distinguish between operant and respondent extinction as operations and processes.
- B.12: Identify examples of stimulus control.
- B.13: Identify examples of stimulus discrimination.
- B.14: Identify and distinguish between stimulus and response generalization.
- B.15: Identify examples of response maintenance.
- B.16: Identify examples of motivating operations.
- B.17: Distinguish between motivating operations and stimulus control.
- B.18: Identify and distinguish between rule-governed and contingency-shaped behavior.
- B.19: Identify and distinguish among verbal operants.
- B.20: Identify the role of multiple control in verbal behavior.
- B.21: Identify examples of processes that promote emergent relations and generative performance.
- B.22: Identify ways behavioral momentum can be used to understand response persistence.
- B.23: Identify ways the matching law can be used to interpret response allocation.
- B.24: Identify and distinguish between imitation and observational learning.
- Measurement, Data Display, and Interpretation 12% of the exam
- C.1: Create operational definitions of behavior.
- C.2: Distinguish among direct, indirect, and product measures of behavior.
- C.3: Measure occurrence.
- C.4: Measure temporal dimensions of behavior (e.g., duration, latency, interresponse time).
- C.5: Distinguish between continuous and discontinuous measurement procedures.
- C.6: Design and apply discontinuous measurement procedures (e.g., interval recording, time sampling).
- C.7: Measure efficiency (e.g., trials to criterion, cost-benefit analysis, training duration).
- C.8: Evaluate the validity and reliability of measurement procedures.
- C.9: Select a measurement procedure to obtain representative data that accounts for the critical dimension of the behavior and environmental constraints.
- C.10: Graph data to communicate relevant quantitative relations (e.g., equal-interval graphs, bar graphs, cumulative records).
- C.11: Interpret graphed data.
- C.12: Select a measurement procedure to obtain representative procedural integrity data that accounts for relevant dimensions (e.g., accuracy, dosage) and environmental constraints.
- Experimental Design 7% of the exam
- D.1: Distinguish between dependent and independent variables.
- D.2: Distinguish between internal and external validity.
- D.3: Identify threats to internal validity (e.g., history, maturation).
- D.4: Identify the defining features of single-case experimental designs (e.g., individuals serve as their own controls, repeated measures, prediction, verification, replication).
- D.5: Identify the relative strengths of single-case experimental designs and group designs.
- D.6: Critique and interpret data from single-case experimental designs.
- D.7: Distinguish among reversal, multiple-baseline, multielement, and changing-criterion designs.
- D.8: Identify rationales for conducting comparative, component, and parametric analyses.
- D.9: Apply single-case experimental designs.
- Ethical and Professional Issues 13% of the exam
- E.1: Identify and apply core principles underlying the ethics codes for BACB certificants (e.g., benefit others; treat others with compassion, dignity, and respect; behave with integrity).
- E.2: Identify the risks to oneself, others, and the profession as a result of engaging in unethical behavior.
- E.3: Develop and maintain competence by engaging in professional development activities (e.g., read literature, seek consultation, establish mentors).
- E.4: Identify and comply with requirements for collecting, using, protecting, and disclosing confidential information.
- E.5: Identify and comply with requirements for making public statements about professional activities (e.g., social media activity; misrepresentation of professional credentials, behavior analysis, and service outcomes).
- E.6: Identify the conditions under which services or supervision should be discontinued and apply steps that should be taken when transitioning clients and supervisees to another professional.
- E.7: Identify types of and risks associated with multiple relationships, and how to mitigate those risks when they are unavoidable.
- E.8: Identify and apply interpersonal and other skills (e.g., accepting feedback, listening actively, seeking input, collaborating) to establish and maintain professional relationships.
- E.9: Engage in cultural humility in service delivery and professional relationships.
- E.10: Apply culturally responsive and inclusive service and supervision activities.
- E.11: Identify personal biases and how they might interfere with professional activity.
- E.12: Identify and apply the legal, regulatory, and practice requirements (e.g., licensure, jurisprudence, funding, certification) relevant to the delivery of behavior-analytic services.
- Behavior Assessment 13% of the exam
- F.1: Identify relevant sources of information in records (e.g., educational, medical, historical) at the outset of the case.
- F.2: Identify and integrate relevant cultural variables in the assessment process.
- F.3: Design and evaluate assessments of relevant skill strengths and areas of need.
- F.4: Design and evaluate preference assessments.
- F.5: Design and evaluate descriptive assessments.
- F.6: Design and evaluate functional analyses.
- F.7: Interpret assessment data to determine the need for behavior-analytic services and/or referral to others.
- F.8: Interpret assessment data to identify and prioritize socially significant, client-informed, and culturally responsive behavior-change procedures and goals.
- Behavior-Change Procedures 14% of the exam
- G.1: Design and evaluate positive and negative reinforcement procedures.
- G.2: Design and evaluate differential reinforcement (e.g., DRA, DRO, DRL, DRH) procedures with and without extinction.
- G.3: Design and evaluate time-based reinforcement (e.g., fixed-time) schedules.
- G.4: Identify procedures to establish and use conditioned reinforcers (e.g., token economies).
- G.5: Incorporate motivating operations and discriminative stimuli into behavior-change procedures.
- G.6: Design and evaluate procedures to produce simple and conditional discriminations.
- G.7: Select and evaluate stimulus and response prompting procedures (e.g., errorless, most-to-least, least-to-most).
- G.8: Design and implement procedures to fade stimulus and response prompts (e.g., prompt delay, stimulus fading).
- G.9: Design and evaluate modeling procedures.
- G.10: Design and evaluate instructions and rules.
- G.11: Shape dimensions of behavior.
- G.12: Select and implement chaining procedures.
- G.13: Design and evaluate trial-based and free-operant procedures.
- G.14: Design and evaluate group contingencies.
- G.15: Design and evaluate procedures to promote stimulus and response generalization.
- G.16: Design and evaluate procedures to maintain desired behavior change following intervention (e.g., schedule thinning, transferring to naturally occurring reinforcers).
- G.17: Design and evaluate positive and negative punishment (e.g., time-out, response cost, overcorrection).
- G.18: Evaluate emotional and elicited effects of behavior-change procedures.
- G.19: Design and evaluate procedures to promote emergent relations and generative performance.
- Selecting and Implementing Interventions 11% of the exam
- H.1: Develop intervention goals in observable and measurable terms.
- H.2: Identify and recommend interventions based on assessment results, scientific evidence, client preferences, and contextual fit (e.g., expertise required for implementation, cultural variables, environmental resources).
- H.3: Select socially valid alternative behavior to be established or increased when a target behavior is to be decreased.
- H.4: Plan for and attempt to mitigate possible unwanted effects when using reinforcement, extinction, and punishment procedures.
- H.5: Plan for and attempt to mitigate possible relapse of the target behavior.
- H.6: Make data-based decisions about procedural integrity.
- H.7: Make data-based decisions about the effectiveness of the intervention and the need for modification.
- H.8: Collaborate with others to support and enhance client services.
- Personnel Supervision and Management 11% of the exam
- I.1: Identify the benefits of using behavior-analytic supervision (e.g., improved client outcomes, improved staff performance and retention).
- I.2: Identify and apply strategies for establishing effective supervisory relationships (e.g., executing supervisor-supervisee contracts, establishing clear expectations, giving and accepting feedback).
- I.3: Identify and implement methods that promote equity in supervision practices.
- I.4: Select supervision goals based on an assessment of the supervisee's skills, cultural variables, and the environment.
- I.5: Identify and apply empirically validated and culturally responsive performance management procedures (e.g., modeling, practice, feedback, reinforcement, task clarification, manipulation of response effort).
- I.6: Apply a function-based approach (e.g., performance diagnostics) to assess and improve supervisee behavior.
- I.7: Make data-based decisions about the efficacy of supervisory practices.