The Registered Behavior Technician® (RBT®) certification exam is administered by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) to assess the knowledge and skills of future behavior technicians. Passing the RBT exam will award you the RBT certification.
Click “Start Test” above to take a free RBT practice exam, and check out our premium-quality RBT test prep resources by clicking the links below!
Eligibility
To be eligible for the RBT exam, you must be at least 18 years old and meet the following requirements:
- You must hold a high school diploma or some equivalent
- You must pass a criminal background check
- You must pass an abuse registry check
- You must have at least 40 hours of qualified training
- You must pass an initial RBT competency assessment
RBT Competency Assessment
The RBT Initial Competency Assessment is used to ensure you are able to perform essential tasks necessary to be eligible for the RBT certification exam. This assessment must be completed after you obtain your minimum of 40 training hours, and you must submit your exam application within 90 days of completing this assessment.
Assessment Outline
The competency assessment contains 20 tasks, all of which must be completed, and will likely take between 1 and 3 hours to complete. Each task will be administered using one of the following assessment types:
- With a client (C): You are observed by an assessor as you perform the task with a client receiving behavior analytic services
- Roleplay (R): You are observed by an assessor as you perform the task in a scenario similar to what may occur with a client
- Interview (I): You are interviewed by an assessor and expected to provide relevant examples and nonexamples for given concepts
The 20 tasks on the assessment are grouped into four sections:
1. Measurement
| Task | Available Assessment Types |
|---|---|
| Continuous Measurement | C/R/I |
| Discontinuous Measurement | |
| Data and Graphs |
2. Assessment
| Task | Available Assessment Types |
|---|---|
| Preference Assessments | C/R |
| ABC Data |
3. Skill Acquisition and Behavior Reduction
Three of these tasks must be demonstrated with a client.
| Task | Available Assessment Types |
|---|---|
| Discrete-Trial Teaching | C/R |
| Naturalistic Teaching | |
| Chaining | |
| Shaping | |
| Discrimination Training | |
| Stimulus Control Transfer | |
| Prompting | |
| Token Systems | |
| Crisis/Emergency | |
One of the following:
|
4. Professionalism and Requirements
| Task | Available Assessment Types |
|---|---|
| Session Notes | C/R/I |
| Client Dignity | I |
| Professional Boundaries | |
| Supervision Requirements | |
| Clinical Direction |
Exam Outline Review
The RBT exam contains 85 multiple-choice questions, 10 of which are unscored, and you will be given a time limit of 1.5 hours.
The exam is split into six content areas, and each area contains an RBT task list.
1. Data Collection and Graphing (13 scored questions)
- Implement continuous measurement procedures
- Implement discontinuous measurement procedures
- Implement permanent product recording procedures
- Enter data and update graphs
- Describe behavior and environment in observable and measurable terms
- Calculate and summarize data
- Identify trends in graphed data
- Describe risks associated with unreliable data collection and poor procedural fidelity
2. Behavior Assessment (8 scored questions)
- Conduct preference assessments
- Participate in assessments of relevant skill strengths and deficits
- Participate in components of functional assessment procedures
3. Behavior Acquisition (19 scored questions)
- Implement positive and negative reinforcement procedures
- Implement procedures to establish and use conditioned reinforcers
- Implement discrete-trial teaching procedures
- Implement naturalistic teaching procedures
- Implement task-analyzed chaining procedures
- Implement discrimination training
- Implement procedures using stimulus and response prompts
- Implement appropriate prompt fading procedures
- Implement generalization procedures across settings, people, and stimuli
- Distinguish between maintenance and acquisition procedures
- Implement shaping procedures
- Implement token economy procedures
4. Behavior Reduction (14 scored questions)
- Identify common functions of behavior
- Implement antecedent interventions
- Implement differential reinforcement procedures
- Implement extinction procedures
- Implement positive and negative punishment procedures
- Describe secondary effects of extinction and punishment
- Implement crisis and emergency procedures
5. Documentation and Reporting (10 scored questions)
- Communicate concerns and suggestions with the intervention team
- Seek and prioritize clinical direction from a supervisor in a timely manner
- Report variables that might affect client progress
- Communicate objectively what occurred during sessions
- Document services in accordance with legal, regulatory, and workplace requirements
6. Ethics (11 scored questions)
- Apply core ethical principles underlying the BACB’s ethics code
- Provide services only after demonstrating competence
- Provide services under appropriate supervision
- Identify effective supervision practices
- Protect confidential information
- Comply with requirements for public statements about professional activities
- Identify and mitigate risks associated with multiple relationships
- Adhere to gift-giving and receiving guidelines
- Apply interpersonal and professional skills
- Engage in cultural humility and responsiveness
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Top 3 Most Challenging RBT Questions
Now that you know more about the test, try your hand at some targeted practice!
Over the last year, we’ve compiled the data from about 7,000 test-takers who tried their hand at the practice test at the top of this page. According to the data, around 65% of people answered these three questions incorrectly.
Answer each question and read through the answer explanation, whether you got the answer right or wrong. This will help you ensure you’ve got the topic mastered.
Whether you struggled with these questions or aced them on your first try, be sure to take the full practice test to get a better idea of how prepared you really are!
1. An RBT is using discrimination training to teach a client to discriminate different items used in eating (e.g., plates, spoons, cups). What is the appropriate response if the client identifies a glass incorrectly?
2. A student scores 38% on a norm-referenced test. What does this mean?
3. A student often refuses to do assignments in math class, so the teacher sends the student to study hall as a punishment. However, the student enjoys reading in study hall, so being sent to study hall solves the student’s problem and serves as reinforcement for the problem behavior. What does this exemplify?
Registration
To register for the RBT exam, you must submit an application to BACB. Your application must include any necessary proof of eligibility, as well as the $65 application fee.
Once your application is approved, you will receive confirmation of your approval and information on how to schedule your exam appointment with Pearson VUE. To take the exam, you must pay a $45 examination fee to Pearson VUE.
Test Day
On the day of your exam, you should arrive at the Pearson VUE testing center 15-30 minutes earlier than the scheduled exam time. After you arrive, you will be asked to sign in and present your photo ID to the proctor. You will be photographed and asked to sign a roster and other rule forms.
Personal items are not allowed in the testing room, so they should be left at home or placed in a secure locker outside the testing area.
Just before the exam starts, you will be given a brief tutorial on the testing system and will be asked to sign an NDA.
How the Exam is Scored
The RBT exam is scored as pass/fail. After you finish the exam, you’ll receive your result at the Pearson VUE testing center.
BACB uses the modified Angoff method to establish the passing score for the RBT exam. This means the passing standard is set by a panel of BACB-certified subject-matter experts and approved by the BACB Board of Directors. Your result is based on your overall performance across the exam, not on your score in each individual content area.
If you pass, your RBT certification status will initially be inactive. To become active, your RBT Supervisor or RBT Requirements Coordinator must add you as a supervisee in the BACB system. If you do not pass, a retake application will become available in your BACB portal account within 48 hours.
RBT Online Prep Course
If you want to be fully prepared, Mometrix offers an online RBT prep course designed to give you everything you need to succeed!
Here’s what you’ll find in the RBT course:
- 50+ Review Lessons Covering Every Topic
- Over 750 RBT Practice Questions
- 150+ Digital Flashcards
- Money-back Guarantee
- Mobile Access
Everyone learns differently, so we’ve tailored the RBT online prep course to ensure every learner has what they need to prepare for the RBT exam.
Click below to check it out!
Retaking the Exam
If you fail the exam, you may retake it up to eight times within a 12-month period. You must pay the full examination fee for each retake.
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How to Study
Start with an RBT Practice Test
Before creating your study schedule, take an RBT practice test to establish a starting point. You don’t need to wait until you have reviewed every topic. At this stage, the goal is to identify where your preparation time will have the greatest effect.
Review your results by domain:
- Data Collection and Graphing: Can you use continuous and discontinuous measurement procedures, collect permanent-product data, calculate and summarize results, update graphs, identify trends, and describe behavior objectively?
- Behavior Assessment: Can you conduct preference assessments and appropriately participate in skill assessments and functional-assessment procedures under supervision?
- Behavior Acquisition: Can you correctly implement reinforcement, discrete-trial and naturalistic teaching, chaining, discrimination training, prompting and fading, generalization, maintenance, shaping, and token economies?
- Behavior Reduction: Can you identify common functions of behavior and correctly implement antecedent interventions, differential reinforcement, extinction, punishment procedures, and established crisis or emergency procedures?
- Documentation and Reporting: Can you communicate concerns to a supervisor, report variables that may affect client progress, seek clinical direction when needed, and document sessions objectively?
- Ethics: Can you protect confidentiality, remain within your competence and role, manage professional boundaries, respond appropriately to gifts and public statements, accept feedback, and provide culturally responsive services?
Identifying those specific weaknesses will show you where to devote more attention during your study time.
Review Difficult Questions
After each practice session, review every question you answered incorrectly AND every question you guessed on or answered with low confidence. Guessing correctly does not necessarily mean that you understood the behavior-analytic principle or would implement the procedure correctly with a client.
For each difficult question, determine which of the following caused the problem:
- You didn’t know the underlying behavioral principle.
- You confused two similar measurement procedures.
- You could calculate the data but did not understand what the result represented.
- You confused positive and negative reinforcement or punishment.
- You understood the intervention but applied it incorrectly.
- You overlooked the function of the behavior.
- You selected an action beyond the RBT’s competence or authority.
- You should have sought supervisor direction before proceeding.
- You overlooked confidentiality, professional-boundary, or documentation requirements.
- You answered based on what you have seen someone do at work rather than what the BACB requires.
- You spent too long trying to distinguish between two plausible answers.
Then, outline a specific plan for improvement based on what you discovered. In other words, don’t just say, “I need to study data collection.” Note that you need to practice distinguishing frequency, rate, duration, latency, and interresponse time and determining which measurement is appropriate for different target behaviors.
Similarly, instead of saying “study behavior reduction,” create a specific task such as distinguishing DRA, DRI, DRO, and DRL or identifying the secondary effects that may occur when extinction is implemented.
Utilize Answer Explanations
Answer explanations are an underutilized studying resource. To take full advantage of them, read the explanation for every question you found difficult, including questions you answered correctly.
For each one, make sure you can confidently explain:
- Why the correct answer is correct
- Why each incorrect option is wrong
- Which RBT task or behavioral principle is being tested
- What information in the scenario controls the answer
- Whether the RBT should implement, document, report, or seek supervision
- How the same concept could appear in a different client situation
For measurement questions, don’t just memorize definitions and hope that’s enough to get by. Determine exactly what behavior is being measured, if the delay before the response is important, and what the resulting number actually represents.
For behavior-reduction questions, identify the function of the behavior and the exact procedure being implemented.
Study ABA Procedures, Not Individual Questions
Memorizing the answer to one RBT practice question will not prepare you for client, behavior, skill, or treatment plan. Your goal should be to understand what the procedure is accomplishing and how an RBT correctly implements it.
For example, don’t memorize that one scenario represents positive reinforcement. Analyze the contingency. What behavior occurred? What happened immediately afterward? Was something added or removed?
The exact questions on your test will be different from the ones you encounter during practice. If you can explain a skill without looking at your notes and then apply it correctly to a new question, that is a good indication that you have mastered it.
Know the RBT’s Role and When to Seek Supervision
An RBT is a paraprofessional who delivers behavior-analytic services under the direction and close supervision of qualified professionals. The RBT does not independently design treatment plans, modify behavioral interventions based solely on personal judgment, conduct independent clinical assessments, or practice outside demonstrated competence.
For example, if a caregiver asks the RBT to add a new intervention because a behavior has recently increased, the RBT should not independently redesign the treatment plan. The relevant information should be documented and communicated to the supervisor so appropriate clinical direction can be provided.
FAQs
Q
What is an RBT?
A
A registered behavior technician (RBT) is a paraprofessional who works to provide treatment for patients with various types of mental health issues.
Q
How do you become an RBT?
A
To become an RBT, you must meet all of the necessary requirements to take the certification exam, which includes taking a competency assessment, and then pass the exam.
Q
What does RBT stand for?
A
RBT stands for registered behavior technician.
Q
How many questions are on the RBT exam?
A
There are 85 multiple-choice questions on the exam.
Q
How long is the RBT exam?
A
The exam is timed at 1.5 hours (90 minutes).
Q
What is the passing score for the RBT exam?
A
Though the scaled score required to pass is not made public, BACB indicates that answering at least 80% of the questions correctly will allow you to pass the exam.
Q
How much does the RBT exam cost?
A
The application fee is $65, and the examination fee is an additional $45.
RBT and Registered Behavior Technician are registered trademarks of Behavior Analyst Certification Board, Inc., which is not affiliated with Mometrix Test Preparation and does not endorse this page.
