BCBA-Reviewed Content
All study guides, practice questions, and clinical explanations on this site are reviewed by Board-Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) to ensure accuracy, clinical relevance, and alignment with the BACB RBT Task List.
This site is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the BACB®. RBT® is a registered trademark of the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, Inc.®
What This Site Is
RBT Practice Test Help is a free study resource for people preparing for the Registered Behavior Technician (RBT) certification exam administered by Pearson VUE on behalf of the BACB. We built it because most existing prep resources were either locked behind expensive memberships or poorly written.
Everything here is free. No account to create. No credit card. No "free trial" that auto-charges you later. You can use every study guide, take every practice exam, and flip through every flashcard without giving us anything except your time.
We're funded by non-intrusive display advertising. That's it.
What's Here
The site currently has:
- 148 study guides covering all six BACB RBT Task List domains, written in plain English with clinical examples
- 385 practice questions across 25 timed practice exams — including 85-question full simulations that match the actual exam format
- Flashcard decks organized by domain for quick review
- A printable 85-question exam you can save as a PDF straight from your browser
- Domain-specific exams so you can drill whichever section needs the most work
Content spans all six Task List domains: Measurement, Assessment, Skill Acquisition, Behavior Reduction, Documentation & Reporting, and Professional Conduct & Scope of Practice. The question bank is weighted to reflect the actual exam blueprint — more questions in Skill Acquisition (28%) and Professional Conduct (25%), fewer in Assessment (7%).
Clinical Review
Every study guide and practice question goes through review by at least one practicing BCBA before it goes live. When something is wrong — a definition that's technically off, a question stem that's ambiguous, an explanation that would confuse more than clarify — we fix it.
If you find an error, email clinical@rbtpracticetest.help with the question number or study guide title. We take corrections seriously. The goal is accuracy, not defending content we already published.
The primary references we use:
- Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2020). Applied Behavior Analysis (3rd ed.). Pearson.
- BACB. (2022). RBT Task List (2nd ed.). bacb.com/rbt
- BACB. (2020). Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts. bacb.com/ethics-code
- Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA). Wiley Online Library
About the RBT Exam
The RBT exam is administered by Pearson VUE at testing centers across the US and internationally. Here's what to expect:
- 85 scored multiple-choice questions (there are also a small number of unscored pilot questions you won't be able to identify)
- 90-minute time limit
- Four answer choices per question — no partial credit, no skipping back
- Passing score set by the BACB — it's a scaled score, not a fixed percentage
- First-attempt pass rate: approximately 65–75% (varies by year)
Before sitting for the exam, you need to complete the 40-hour training (including at least 10% of hours in supervision), pass the BACB's competency assessment, and submit your application through the BACB portal. This site covers exam content — it is not a substitute for the 40-hour training requirement.
The Task List: What the Exam Actually Covers
The RBT Task List (2nd Edition, effective 2022) divides the exam into six domains with specific weightings:
- A. Measurement — 14% (~12 questions): Data collection methods, continuous vs. discontinuous measurement, graphing, inter-observer agreement
- B. Assessment — 7% (~6 questions): Preference assessments, assisting with functional assessments, ABC data
- C. Skill Acquisition — 28% (~24 questions): DTT, NET, prompting hierarchies, shaping, chaining, generalization — the largest domain
- D. Behavior Reduction — 14% (~12 questions): Extinction, differential reinforcement procedures, crisis protocols, safety skills
- E. Documentation & Reporting — 12% (~10 questions): Session notes, incident reports, HIPAA, data systems
- F. Professional Conduct & Scope of Practice — 25% (~21 questions): Ethics code, dual relationships, supervision, confidentiality, mandated reporting
The full task list PDF is free at bacb.com/rbt. Read it. It's the blueprint for the exam.
The 7 Dimensions of ABA
Published in 1968 by Baer, Wolf, and Risley in the first issue of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, these seven dimensions define what makes behavioral intervention "applied behavior analysis" rather than something else. They show up on the exam and in clinical practice.
- Applied: The behavior being changed has to matter to the person and to society. We work on skills and behaviors with real consequences, not arbitrary lab tasks.
- Behavioral: We measure what we can observe. Behavior has to be defined in a way that two independent observers can agree on what they're counting.
- Analytic: We don't just hope the intervention is working — we collect data that demonstrates a functional relationship between the intervention and the behavior change.
- Technological: Procedures are written clearly enough that any trained practitioner can implement them the same way. Vague instructions don't qualify.
- Conceptually Systematic: Techniques are tied back to basic behavioral principles (reinforcement, punishment, stimulus control, extinction). Trendy buzzwords that can't be traced to the science don't belong here.
- Effective: The change has to actually matter. Statistically significant but clinically meaningless improvements don't count.
- Generality: Skills and behavior changes should extend beyond the training setting, hold over time, and appear across different people and contexts.
A Brief History of the Field
Applied behavior analysis didn't appear out of nowhere. It grew from decades of laboratory research:
Ivan Pavlov (early 1900s) demonstrated that reflexes could be conditioned through the pairing of stimuli — the foundation of respondent conditioning. E.L. Thorndike's Law of Effect (1911) showed that behaviors followed by satisfying outcomes are repeated. B.F. Skinner formalized operant conditioning and spent decades showing how consequences shape behavior.
The jump from lab to clinic happened in 1959, when Ayllon and Michael published work showing behavioral principles could be used to treat people in psychiatric settings. In 1968, Baer, Wolf, and Risley published the paper that formally defined ABA as a discipline — it's still required reading in graduate programs today.
The RBT credential was established by the BACB in 2014 to standardize the training and supervision of frontline practitioners. Before the RBT existed, "behavior technician" meant something different at every agency. The credential created a common baseline.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. No account needed. No paywall. No credit card. We make money from display ads on the site. That's the whole funding model.
Study guides and questions are written by people with RBT and BCBA experience and reviewed by practicing BCBAs. We don't use AI to write clinical definitions or questions — that's how errors creep in.
We're aligned with the BACB RBT Task List (2nd Edition, effective 2022). We audit content quarterly and update it when BACB standards change or when we identify errors. The current content reflects the 2026 exam format.
Sure — the content is free to use for studying. We're not a 40-hour training provider and can't fulfill the BACB's training requirement, but plenty of trainers use the site as a supplement. Just don't confuse "studied the site" with "completed the competency assessment."
No. We're independent. RBT® is a registered trademark of the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, Inc.®, and we're not affiliated, sponsored, or endorsed by them.
Email clinical@rbtpracticetest.help with the question number or study guide title and what you think is wrong. We'll review it and fix it if you're right.