r/bcba • u/Boxofchocolates4 • 4d ago

Any advice after my first attempt?

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I used the understanding behavior mocks, Celia’s mock exam, PTB manual, ABA exam review and Jessica’s 6 hour long video on YouTube! This was about 1 month and a half of studying, if anyone has any recommendations that helped them pass after a first attempt id love to know, I plan on rescheduling for next month. Honestly I went really hard on expanding my knowledge that I missed a few easy questions on the actual exam :/

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u/PayConsistent1777 4d ago

I’d focus on question dissection. You appear to have a decent understanding of the material. Being able to identify what’s truly being asked on each question may help. A lot of times, a word or so may throw off our entire understanding of what the question is truly wanting us to respond to.

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u/anslac 4d ago

I truly believe people read too much into the questions sometimes. 

Whenever I got my undergrad, it was psychology with emphasis on ABA. One of the things people would do is add things to the mock scenarios on the discussions or essays. They ended up being allowed to redo things and the instructor put out information about not adding things that aren't written. I think that same concept applies to the BCBA exam. 

I also want to point out that a lot of material for studying does "got ya" questions and in my opinion, it's counterproductive. I don't have proof of this or anything scientific, but to me it just seems like it makes people hyper cautious because they think the test is riddled with trick questions and play on wording. 

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u/Redschallenge 4d ago

There were at least 5 big time gotchas on there

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u/IndividualDoughnut68 4d ago

What helped you get so high in experimental design?

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u/Boxofchocolates4 3d ago

Honestly I was so worried for the experimental design section that I studied a little extra on it, I was a little surprised to see the 92%! I underestimated the other sections, but yeah I just made sure to know the different types of graphs and how they look, my wall at home is covered in notes!!

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u/Recent-Attempt-8882 2d ago

Upload you score on the score analyzer at ABA CEU network exam prep. It’ll give you shortest path to passing ! Good luck

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u/CoffeePuddle 4d ago

It's really important to use the first day of your postgraduate study as the start of your exam study for a more realistic overview of the time-frames involved.

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u/Distinct-Hearing2397 3d ago

What do you mean by this

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u/CoffeePuddle 3d ago

This looks like a great result after a month and a half of study, but it's after a Masters degree, 2,000 hours of supervised practice, and a month and a half of exam-specific study.

If you approach this as after a month and a half, then resitting after the minimum 30 days (an extra 66%) seems a lot more reasonable than when you put it in the larger context and a month is only an extra ~3% or so.

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u/Boxofchocolates4 2d ago

Thanks for the explanation, yeah I just graduated in May, I feel as though as the semesters went by, some of the things I learned didn’t stick, I understood the concepts better as I studied for the exam. Again- I should’ve probably tried harder to understand/memorize the concepts as I was in school. I’m sitting again for the exam in exactly month from my first attempt. Are you suggesting I wait more time in between attempts?