BCBA Concepts & Principles Practice Questions
Concepts and Principles is one of the two largest domains on the exam. Almost every question is a short scenario: you have to decide what is changing in the environment, whether behavior goes up or down in the future, and which principle that makes it.
What Domain B covers
The 6th Edition Test Content Outline lists 24 tasks in this domain. Baseline has practice questions mapped to every one of them.
- B.1Behavior, response, and response class
- B.2Stimulus and stimulus class
- B.3Respondent vs. operant conditioning
- B.4Positive vs. negative reinforcement
- B.5Positive vs. negative punishment
- B.6Automatic vs. socially mediated contingencies
- B.7Unconditioned, conditioned, and generalized reinforcers
- B.8Unconditioned, conditioned, and generalized punishers
- B.9Simple schedules of reinforcement
- B.10Concurrent, multiple, mixed, and chained schedules
- B.11Operant vs. respondent extinction
- B.12Stimulus control
- B.13Stimulus discrimination
- B.14Stimulus vs. response generalization
- B.15Response maintenance
- B.16Motivating operations
- B.17Motivating operations vs. stimulus control
- B.18Rule-governed vs. contingency-shaped behavior
- B.19Verbal operants
- B.20Multiple control in verbal behavior
- B.21Emergent relations and generative performance
- B.22Behavioral momentum and response persistence
- B.23The matching law and response allocation
- B.24Imitation vs. observational learning
What to master
- Reinforcement and punishment, positive and negative — defined by the effect on future behavior, not by whether something feels pleasant.
- Motivating operations (establishing and abolishing) and how they differ from discriminative stimuli.
- Schedules of reinforcement: the response patterns produced by FR, VR, FI, and VI, and compound schedules.
- Stimulus control, discrimination, generalization, and maintenance.
- Verbal operants (mand, tact, echoic, intraverbal, textual, transcription) and multiple control.
Common traps
- Calling every removal "negative reinforcement" — if behavior decreases, it's punishment.
- Labeling an MO as an SD: an MO changes how valuable a consequence is; an SD signals that it's available.
- Mistaking extinction (withholding the maintaining reinforcer) for negative punishment (removing a different reinforcer).
Free Concepts & Principles practice questions
Try these original questions written to match the format of the BCBA exam.
1. Every time Jordan fastens his seatbelt, the car's loud warning chime stops. Over the following weeks, Jordan begins fastening his seatbelt sooner after getting in the car. Which principle is operating?
- Positive reinforcement
- Negative punishment
- Negative reinforcement
- Positive punishment
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. Negative reinforcement
A stimulus (the chime) is removed contingent on the behavior, and the behavior increases in the future — negative reinforcement. "Negative" means removal; "reinforcement" means the behavior increases. Punishment would require a decrease.
2. After a long run without water, water becomes more effective as a reinforcer, and behaviors that have produced water in the past occur more often. The run without water is best described as:
- A discriminative stimulus
- An abolishing operation
- An establishing operation
- A conditioned reinforcer
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. An establishing operation
An establishing operation increases the reinforcing effectiveness of a stimulus (value-altering effect) and evokes behavior that produced it before (behavior-altering effect). A discriminative stimulus signals that reinforcement is available; it does not change how valuable the reinforcer is.
Practice all 72 Concepts & Principles questions
Full Prep includes every question in this domain with explanations, smart practice that targets your weakest tasks, unlimited timed mock exams, and an AI tutor. Start with the free diagnostic to see where you stand.