BCBA Mock Exam OBHS Answered updated 2021/2022.
A behavior analyst designs a behavior plan to teach social skills and sharing in children. She wishes to
evaluate the efficacy of the treatment in an ABA design. This is an example of what characteristic of
science?
a. Determinism
b. Experimental Evaluation
c. Philosophic doubt
d. Empiricism ans: B
A behavior definition is tested, and it is found that two observers using it agree on the occurrence or
non-occurrence of the target behavior 90% of the time. This technique is called:
a) Social Validity
b) Direct observation
c) Parsimonious
d) Inter-observer agreement. ans: D
A behavior is observed to occur 80 times in a 40 minute session. What is the rate of the behavior,
expressed in number of occurrences per minute?
a) 3
b) 2
c) 20
d) 8 ans: B
A behavior occurs in environments other than the one in which the behavioral techniques were applied,
or affects other behaviors not directly treated. We say that the training effects have:
a) conceptualized
b) generalized
c) consolidated
d) generality ans: B
A child is having a tantrum in your classroom. You believe that the tantrum is occurring for your
attention. You therefore ignore the tantrum until it ceases while continuing daily activities. You note
that the tantrums decrease over time. This is an example of:
a. Punishment
b. Establishing operation
c. Timeout from reinforcement
d. Extinction ans: D
A child saying "kitty" when she sees a dog is an example of a(n): (C.A. 3-17)
a) Intraverbal
b) Tact
c) Mand
d) Textual behavior ans: B
,A client under your supervision engages in frequent rumination that appears to have resulted in
substantial weight loss. What is the first assessment task?
a. Systematic manipulation of some variable
b. Records review
c. Nothing - the behavior is not change worthy
d. Conduct an IQ test ans: B
A coach tells the pitcher, "If you fake a motion towards the plate, the runner can advance. We don‟t
want that to happen." The pitcher changes his stance and the motion he makes towards the plate. This
behavior change is an example of _________.
a) contingency shaped behavior
b) rule-governed behavior
c) respondent conditioning
d) discrimination training ans: B
A Descriptive Functional Assessment incorporates
a) Analog conditions and inferential statistics
b) Structured interviews and systematic manipulations
c) Functional assessment tools, structured interviews, and direct observation
d) Records review and development of insight ans: C
A graph is a visual representation of data that may be used to:
a) Provide motivational feedback to those whose behavior is being graphed.
b) Provide the experimenter with visual information on which to base decisions about treatment
effectiveness.
c) Provide information about when to make changes in conditions, treatments, or phases of an
experiment.
d) All of the above. ans: D
A group home resident's favorite food is liver. In general, it is found to reinforce a wide range of his
behaviors. Today, however, he has had some friends for dinner, and he has eaten all the liver that he
wants. It is found that liver does not work as a reinforcer for him tonight. What has taken place?
a) Deprivation
b) Extinction
c) Satiation
d) Spontaneous recovery. ans: C
A horizontal line through a set of data points on a line graph shows the ________ of the behavior.
a) Trend
b) level
c) range
d) variability ans: B
A parametric study is one that:
a) Examines and compares the effects of a range of different values of the independent variable
b) Involves use of a single-value independent variable that is manipulated
c) Isolates the effects of confounding variables that exert unknown or uncontrolled influences
on the dependent variable
, d) Is used to study the most effective elements of a treatment package ans: A
A person is asked to make his bed. His caregiver checks 30 minutes later and the bed has been made. No
one else was present during that time. The staff person records that the resident made the bed, even
though he did not observe that behavior directly. The data collection method being used is:
a) Duration recording
b) Event recording
c) Permanent product recording
d) Whole interval recording ans: C
A person who learns to say "red" when presented with a red card also says "red" when presented with
an orange card. This is called:
a) Stimulus generalization.
b) Response generalization.
c) Discrimination.
d) The Premack Principle ans: A
A researcher systematically varies the conditions of an earlier experiment in order to examine its
generality. This is an example of a:
a) Direct reproduction
b) Systematic replication
c) Component analysis
d) Systematic reproduction ans: B
A resident of a group home takes out the trash independently for the first time when you make a verbal
request. You provide descriptive praise and the behavior is observed to increase in the future. You have
used what procedure?
a) negative reinforcement
b) negative punishment
c) positive reinforcement
d) CS-US pairing ans: C
A student for whom you are providing behavior analysis services lives with her mother. Her parents are
divorced and her mother has custody per a court order. The father calls you and asks for a progress
report on his daughter. What do you tell the father?
a) Tell him that since he is no longer the legal guardian, you are not ethically permitted to release any
information on the student without written authorization from the mother
b) Since he is the father, you tell him how his daughter is doing
c) You tell him that since he and the mother are divorced, you are only permitted to send a written
report in the mail.
d) Tell him that he needs to call the school principal for the information as you are ethically not
permitted to do so. ans: A
A study has external validity if:
a) It's findings are generalizable to other settings, populations, or individuals.
b) It's findings are valid for the subjects studied.
c) If the changes in behavior appear in untrained responses.
d) If the changes in behavior appear in untrained environments. ans: A
A behavior analyst designs a behavior plan to teach social skills and sharing in children. She wishes to
evaluate the efficacy of the treatment in an ABA design. This is an example of what characteristic of
science?
a. Determinism
b. Experimental Evaluation
c. Philosophic doubt
d. Empiricism ans: B
A behavior definition is tested, and it is found that two observers using it agree on the occurrence or
non-occurrence of the target behavior 90% of the time. This technique is called:
a) Social Validity
b) Direct observation
c) Parsimonious
d) Inter-observer agreement. ans: D
A behavior is observed to occur 80 times in a 40 minute session. What is the rate of the behavior,
expressed in number of occurrences per minute?
a) 3
b) 2
c) 20
d) 8 ans: B
A behavior occurs in environments other than the one in which the behavioral techniques were applied,
or affects other behaviors not directly treated. We say that the training effects have:
a) conceptualized
b) generalized
c) consolidated
d) generality ans: B
A child is having a tantrum in your classroom. You believe that the tantrum is occurring for your
attention. You therefore ignore the tantrum until it ceases while continuing daily activities. You note
that the tantrums decrease over time. This is an example of:
a. Punishment
b. Establishing operation
c. Timeout from reinforcement
d. Extinction ans: D
A child saying "kitty" when she sees a dog is an example of a(n): (C.A. 3-17)
a) Intraverbal
b) Tact
c) Mand
d) Textual behavior ans: B
,A client under your supervision engages in frequent rumination that appears to have resulted in
substantial weight loss. What is the first assessment task?
a. Systematic manipulation of some variable
b. Records review
c. Nothing - the behavior is not change worthy
d. Conduct an IQ test ans: B
A coach tells the pitcher, "If you fake a motion towards the plate, the runner can advance. We don‟t
want that to happen." The pitcher changes his stance and the motion he makes towards the plate. This
behavior change is an example of _________.
a) contingency shaped behavior
b) rule-governed behavior
c) respondent conditioning
d) discrimination training ans: B
A Descriptive Functional Assessment incorporates
a) Analog conditions and inferential statistics
b) Structured interviews and systematic manipulations
c) Functional assessment tools, structured interviews, and direct observation
d) Records review and development of insight ans: C
A graph is a visual representation of data that may be used to:
a) Provide motivational feedback to those whose behavior is being graphed.
b) Provide the experimenter with visual information on which to base decisions about treatment
effectiveness.
c) Provide information about when to make changes in conditions, treatments, or phases of an
experiment.
d) All of the above. ans: D
A group home resident's favorite food is liver. In general, it is found to reinforce a wide range of his
behaviors. Today, however, he has had some friends for dinner, and he has eaten all the liver that he
wants. It is found that liver does not work as a reinforcer for him tonight. What has taken place?
a) Deprivation
b) Extinction
c) Satiation
d) Spontaneous recovery. ans: C
A horizontal line through a set of data points on a line graph shows the ________ of the behavior.
a) Trend
b) level
c) range
d) variability ans: B
A parametric study is one that:
a) Examines and compares the effects of a range of different values of the independent variable
b) Involves use of a single-value independent variable that is manipulated
c) Isolates the effects of confounding variables that exert unknown or uncontrolled influences
on the dependent variable
, d) Is used to study the most effective elements of a treatment package ans: A
A person is asked to make his bed. His caregiver checks 30 minutes later and the bed has been made. No
one else was present during that time. The staff person records that the resident made the bed, even
though he did not observe that behavior directly. The data collection method being used is:
a) Duration recording
b) Event recording
c) Permanent product recording
d) Whole interval recording ans: C
A person who learns to say "red" when presented with a red card also says "red" when presented with
an orange card. This is called:
a) Stimulus generalization.
b) Response generalization.
c) Discrimination.
d) The Premack Principle ans: A
A researcher systematically varies the conditions of an earlier experiment in order to examine its
generality. This is an example of a:
a) Direct reproduction
b) Systematic replication
c) Component analysis
d) Systematic reproduction ans: B
A resident of a group home takes out the trash independently for the first time when you make a verbal
request. You provide descriptive praise and the behavior is observed to increase in the future. You have
used what procedure?
a) negative reinforcement
b) negative punishment
c) positive reinforcement
d) CS-US pairing ans: C
A student for whom you are providing behavior analysis services lives with her mother. Her parents are
divorced and her mother has custody per a court order. The father calls you and asks for a progress
report on his daughter. What do you tell the father?
a) Tell him that since he is no longer the legal guardian, you are not ethically permitted to release any
information on the student without written authorization from the mother
b) Since he is the father, you tell him how his daughter is doing
c) You tell him that since he and the mother are divorced, you are only permitted to send a written
report in the mail.
d) Tell him that he needs to call the school principal for the information as you are ethically not
permitted to do so. ans: A
A study has external validity if:
a) It's findings are generalizable to other settings, populations, or individuals.
b) It's findings are valid for the subjects studied.
c) If the changes in behavior appear in untrained responses.
d) If the changes in behavior appear in untrained environments. ans: A
