BCBA 6th Edition Test Content Outline: What You Need to Know

What Is the 6th Edition Test Content Outline?

The Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) publishes a Test Content Outline (TCO) that defines what the BCBA exam covers and how many questions come from each area. The 6th Edition TCO applies to BCBA exams taken from January 2025 onward. If you're studying for the BCBA exam now, this is the version you need to know.

If you learned from older materials, you may have seen content grouped under two big sections — "Foundations" and "Applications." That framing comes from the 5th Edition Task List. Study guides, flashcard decks, and practice tests built around it may still be useful for core concepts, but their domain names, weights, and question counts won't line up with the exam you're taking.

This guide walks through the 6th Edition structure, what each domain emphasizes, and how to build your study time around it. For the full list of individual tasks, download the current outline from the BACB website — it's the only authoritative source.

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The Exam Format at a Glance

• 185 multiple-choice questions in total
• 175 scored questions plus 10 unscored pilot questions mixed in (you won't know which ones are unscored, so treat every question as if it counts)
• 4 hours of testing time
• Results are reported as a scaled score, with 400 as the passing score

Four hours for 185 questions works out to roughly 1 minute and 18 seconds per question. That's enough time if you move steadily, but not enough to agonize over every scenario. Pacing is a skill worth practicing before exam day.

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The Nine Domains and Their Weights

The 6th Edition organizes the exam into nine domains, labeled A through I:

Two things stand out. First, no single domain dominates — the heaviest (B and G) are 14% each, and six domains fall between 11% and 14%. You can't pass by mastering two or three areas and hoping for the best. Second, the lightest domain (A, at 5%) is still 8 scored questions, which is enough to matter on a close score.

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What Each Domain Emphasizes

A. Behaviorism and Philosophical Foundations. Radical behaviorism, the dimensions of applied behavior analysis, determinism, and the philosophical roots of the science. Expect questions that ask you to recognize a behavioral versus mentalistic explanation. B. Concepts and Principles. The three-term contingency, reinforcement, punishment, extinction, motivating operations, stimulus control, and the basics of verbal behavior. This is the vocabulary the rest of the exam is built on, so weakness here shows up everywhere. C. Measurement, Data Display, and Interpretation. Choosing measurement procedures, interobserver agreement, graphing, and visual analysis of single-case data. Many questions show a graph or a data set and ask what you'd conclude. D. Experimental Design. Single-subject designs — reversal, multiple baseline, alternating treatments, and changing criterion — and how to judge whether a design actually demonstrates experimental control. E. Ethical and Professional Issues. Applying the BACB's Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts: informed consent, confidentiality, multiple relationships, scope of competence, and cultural responsiveness. Questions are almost always scenarios asking what the behavior analyst should do first. F. Behavior Assessment. Indirect, descriptive, and experimental functional assessment, preference assessment, and ABC data. Know when each method fits and what its limitations are. G. Behavior-Change Procedures. Reinforcement schedules, shaping, chaining, prompting and prompt fading, differential reinforcement, extinction, and antecedent strategies — the core toolbox of intervention. H. Selecting and Implementing Interventions. Choosing interventions based on assessment results, treatment integrity, generalization and maintenance, data-based decision making, and working with stakeholders. I. Personnel Supervision and Management. Behavior-analytic supervision, setting performance expectations, training staff, giving feedback, and managing performance in a culturally responsive way.

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How to Adjust Your Study Plan

1. Replace old outlines. If your notes or schedule are organized around "Foundations" and "Applications," re-sort them into the nine 6th Edition domains. It takes an afternoon and prevents blind spots. 2. Weight your time by the real percentages. Domains B and G (14% each) deserve more total practice than domain A (5%). Use the table above as your starting point, then adjust based on where you're actually weak. 3. Take a baseline first. Before you commit to a schedule, take a timed set of questions drawn from every domain and look at your accuracy by domain. Self-rated confidence is unreliable — most candidates overestimate the areas they enjoy. 4. Mix your practice. The exam blends all nine domains together, so your practice should too. Rather than finishing one domain and moving on, keep a portion of every session mixed across domains. Interleaved, spaced practice is one of the most reliable ways to make knowledge stick. 5. Practice with scenarios, not definitions. Most 6th Edition questions describe a situation and ask you to identify the principle, choose the next step, or interpret the data. Definition drills help early on, but scenario practice is what builds exam readiness. 6. Rehearse the full length. Sit for at least two full-length, timed mock exams before test day to build pacing and stamina.

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A Note for BCaBA, RBT, and QBA Candidates

The 6th Edition TCO described here is for the BCBA exam. The BCaBA and RBT exams have their own outlines with different domains and weights, and QBA candidates follow the content outline published by QABA. The study approach above — weight by the real outline, baseline first, mix your practice, practice with scenarios — works for every one of them. Just make sure you're using the current outline for your credential.

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Study With 6th Edition Content

ABA Study Companion's BCBA practice bank has 3,000+ questions organized by the nine 6th Edition domains, and its mock exams follow the same domain weights shown above. Mastery tracking and analytics show your accuracy by domain, so you can see exactly where to focus next. BCaBA, RBT, and QBA candidates get mock exams built to their own exam blueprints, too.

Start your 7-day free trial (no card required) at abastudycompanion.com and see where you stand across all nine domains.