BCAT Practice Questions (2026) — Free Sample Questions with Answers

Answer: B

Hyperreactivity to sensory input: Sensory hyperreactivity is an adverse response to a sensory stimulus such as noise; the trigger here is a change in route.

Insistence on sameness: Correct. Extreme distress at small changes and needing to take the same route every day are DSM-5-TR examples of insistence on sameness.

Highly restricted, fixated interest: A fixated interest is intense focus on a topic or object, not distress when a routine changes.

Stereotyped motor movements: Stereotyped movements are repetitive actions such as hand flapping or rocking, which are not described.

Insistence on sameness covers inflexible routines, ritualized patterns and extreme distress at small changes, such as a new route.

Answer: B

Theo building with blocks: This is the ongoing activity or setting, but the event that immediately preceded the crying was the instruction.

The instruction to clean up: Correct. The antecedent is the event immediately before the behavior. Crying began right after "Time to clean up."

Theo dropping to the floor and crying: This is the behavior being recorded.

The technician putting the blocks away: This followed the crying, so it is the consequence (and it removed the cleanup demand).

In ABC data, the antecedent is what happened immediately before the behavior; what followed it is the consequence.

Answer: A

The tablet is still being delivered: Correct. Extinction requires withholding the reinforcer that maintains the behavior. Screaming is maintained by the tablet, and the tablet still follows it, so the behavior keeps being reinforced.

Screaming is in an extinction burst: An extinction burst is a temporary increase during extinction. Screaming did not increase, and extinction is not in place because the tablet still follows screaming.

Ignoring is a form of punishment: Ignoring is not punishment and nothing here decreased; screaming stayed the same.

Attention has become a conditioned reinforcer: Attention is being withheld, so it cannot explain the screaming continuing.

Extinction must match the function: withhold the specific reinforcer that maintains the behavior, not just attention.

Answer: D

Negative reinforcement: Nothing was removed after Wesley handed over the puzzle; a sticker and praise were added.

Positive punishment: Punishment decreases future behavior. Puzzle completion increased, so this is reinforcement.

Negative punishment: Negative punishment removes a stimulus and decreases behavior. Here a stimulus was added and the behavior increased.

Positive reinforcement: Correct. Positive reinforcement adds a stimulus after a behavior and the behavior increases in the future. The sticker and praise were added, and puzzle completion increased.

Name the quadrant by two questions: was a stimulus added or removed, and did the behavior later increase or decrease?

Answer: D

Tacting: A tact names something present and is maintained by praise; Nikhil does not name the plane, and the target of his point and gaze is shared attention with the adult.

Responding to joint attention: Responding to joint attention means following another person's point or gaze; here Nikhil starts the exchange himself.

Manding by pointing: A mand by pointing requests an item or action; Nikhil does not reach or try to get anything, and the consequence he gets is shared attention.

Initiating joint attention: Correct. Initiating joint attention is the client directing another person's attention to an object or event (pointing plus alternating gaze) to share interest, not to obtain the item.

Joint attention has two forms: responding (following someone else's point or gaze) and initiating (directing someone else's attention to share an experience, not to request).

Answer: B

She has not yet mastered the word "cookie": This is a form-based view: she clearly can say the word, but only under one controlling variable.

Tacting and manding a word are separate skills: Correct. A functional (verbal behavior) approach classifies words by what controls them. Saying "cookie" to a picture is a tact; saying it to get a cookie is a mand. Learning one does not guarantee the other, so the mand must be taught directly under the relevant motivation.

Her crying shows the word is on extinction: Nothing in the scenario shows "cookie" being said and going unreinforced; she does not say it at all when hungry.

She needs more tact trials before she can request: More picture-naming practice strengthens the tact, not the mand; the operants are functionally independent.

In a functional approach the same word can be a mand, tact, echoic or intraverbal depending on its controlling variables, and each function usually has to be taught.

Answer: C

Keep pointing on every trial so she stays correct: Continuing as is maintains the dependency and ignores the plan's fading criteria without informing the supervisor.

Switch to least-to-most prompting next session: Selecting a new prompting procedure is a treatment decision reserved for the QHCP.

Report the pattern and data to the QHCP: Correct. Waiting for a prompt that should be faded indicates prompt dependency; the technician reports the data to the supervising QHCP, who decides how to revise prompt fading.

Stop all prompts starting next session: Abruptly removing prompts changes the procedure without QHCP approval and can produce many errors.

Prompt dependency = responding only after a prompt that should have been faded; the technician records and reports it, and the QHCP changes the plan.

Answer: B

Removal of blocks when she refuses puzzles: Taking away blocks for refusal is a negative punishment procedure (response cost), not the Premack principle, and is not in the plan.

Block time after she completes a puzzle: Correct. The Premack principle makes access to a high-probability behavior (building with blocks) contingent on a low-probability behavior (completing a puzzle): "First puzzle, then blocks."

Blocks available throughout puzzle time: Free, noncontingent access to blocks removes the contingency and would likely compete with doing puzzles.

A puzzle after she finishes block time: This reverses the contingency: the low-probability activity follows the preferred one, so it cannot reinforce puzzle completion.

Premack ("Grandma's rule"): high-probability behavior is delivered contingent on the low-probability behavior — first the less preferred task, then the preferred one.

Answer: B

Sela's hitting persists longer: Behavior on continuous reinforcement usually decreases quickly in extinction because the change from "always" to "never" is easy to detect.

Raffi's hitting persists longer: Correct. Behavior maintained on lean, unpredictable intermittent schedules is more resistant to extinction; long runs without reinforcement were already part of Raffi's history, so his hitting is likely to continue longer.

Neither will show an extinction burst: Either client may show a burst; the schedule history affects how long the behavior persists, not whether a burst can occur.

Both will decrease at the same rate: The reinforcement history differs, and intermittent histories produce greater resistance to extinction.

Intermittent reinforcement, especially lean and variable schedules, makes behavior more resistant to extinction than continuous reinforcement.

Answer: D

Ignore the screaming and step away until she calms: Stepping away ends the cleanup demand, so screaming still produces escape; ignoring is attention extinction, not escape extinction.

Pick up the toys for her and move to the next activity: Doing the task for her removes the demand contingent on screaming, which negatively reinforces the screaming.

Give a short break, then repeat the instruction: A break delivered right after screaming is the reinforcer that maintains it; repeating the instruction later does not undo that escape.

Keep the instruction in place and guide her to finish: Correct. Escape extinction means the problem behavior no longer ends the demand. Keeping the instruction in place and guiding her through cleanup, as the plan specifies, withholds the escape that has maintained screaming.

For escape-maintained behavior, extinction means the demand continues despite the problem behavior; ignoring the behavior is not enough if the task still ends.

Answer: C

Escape: If he were avoiding table work, screaming would not also occur before recess, a preferred activity.

Attention: The consequence that stops the screaming is the tablet, not the technician's attention.

Tangible: Correct. Screaming follows loss of the tablet regardless of what comes next (even recess) and stops when the tablet is returned, so regaining the tablet maintains it.

Automatic: Screaming depends on a specific social event (the tablet being removed and returned).

At transitions, check what happens next: if behavior occurs regardless of the next activity and ends when the item returns, it is tangible-maintained, not escape-maintained.

Answer: B

Add examples and non-examples of crying: Examples help observers agree on what counts as crying, but this disagreement is about counting separate bursts, which needs onset and offset criteria.

State when a tantrum starts and when it ends: Correct. The disagreement is about where one instance stops and the next begins, so onset and offset criteria (for example, "ends after 10 seconds with no crying or screaming") fix exactly this problem.

Add the likely function of the tantrums: Function does not belong in an operational definition and would not help observers count instances.

Record tantrums with partial-interval recording: Changing the measurement system is a QHCP decision and does not repair the unclear definition the observers are using.

For behaviors that occur in bursts, an operational definition needs onset and offset criteria so observers agree on how many instances occurred.

Answer: C

1. Compare each interval: agreements in 1 (+/+), 3 (−/−), 4 (+/+), 6 (+/+), 7 (−/−), 9 (+/+) = 6.
2. Disagreements in 2, 5, 8 and 10 = 4.
3. IOA = 6 ÷ (6 + 4) = 0.6.
4. 0.6 × 100 = 60%.

40%: This is the proportion of intervals with disagreements (4 of 10), not agreements.

50%: This uses only intervals in which at least one observer scored the behavior (4 agreements of 8), which is occurrence IOA, not interval-by-interval IOA.

60%: Correct. The observers agree in intervals 1, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 9 (6 agreements) and disagree in 2, 5, 8 and 10 (4 disagreements): 6 ÷ (6 + 4) × 100 = 60%.

100%: This compares only totals (6 marks each), which is total count logic; it hides the intervals where the observers disagreed.

Interval-by-interval IOA = agreements ÷ (agreements + disagreements) × 100, comparing each interval; matching totals can still hide disagreements.

Answer: C

1. Total duration = 4 + 7 + 3 + 6 = 20 minutes.
2. Number of tantrums = 4.
3. Average duration = 20 ÷ 4 = 5 minutes per tantrum.

3: This is the shortest single tantrum, not the average.

4: This is the number of tantrums (frequency), not their average length.

5: Correct. Total duration is 4 + 7 + 3 + 6 = 20 minutes; 20 ÷ 4 tantrums = 5 minutes per tantrum.

20: This is the total duration; it must still be divided by the 4 episodes.

Average duration per occurrence = total duration ÷ number of episodes.