Free Base SAS Certification Study Notes

Hi everyone,

I wanted to give you all a heads up that I'll be posting free Base SAS Certification study notes from time to time at the link below. Feel free to check these out as you're studying for the Base SAS Certification exam.

http://sascert3.blogspot.com/p/products.html


In addition, a complete list of my Base SAS Certification example questions can be found at the below link. These questions will give you a good benchmark of where you stand before you sit for the exam and what your strengths and weaknesses are.

http://sascert3.blogspot.com/search/label/Base%20SAS%20Example%20Questions


I hope these Base SAS Certification study notes and questions are useful to you, and please be sure to leave comments if there are other topics or example questions that you would include or leave out.

Good luck studying!

-SAS Cert

SAS Proc Contents

Below is a summary of the SAS Proc Contents procedure. You can pretty much guarantee that the Proc Contents procedure topic will show up somewhere on the Base SAS Certification exam, so be sure to read and understand this information thoroughly. It's an easy correct answer on the exam if you do!


Proc Contents Purpose:
Describes the contents of a library or the descriptor information for an individual SAS data set


Syntax:

PROC CONTENTS DATA=sas-data-library-or-data-set  (NODS) (VARNUM);
RUN;

***NODS and VARNUM are optional and their uses are described below


Other Important Points Worth Mentioning:
You can specify _ALL_ after a libref to show a detailed listing of all the files in the library

Example:
proc contents data=credit._all_;
run;


You can specify NODS to suppress detailed information about each file. You can only use this option when libref._ALL_ is specified.

In the example below, there are 3 datasets in the SAS library air - Organics, Reten7, and Scoredata.

Example:
proc contents data=air._all_ nods;
run;

The VARNUM option is used to list the variable names in their logical position (creation order) as opposed to alphabetical order.

Example:
proc contents data=credit.mortgage varnum;
run;


I hope this was helpful for you. Let me know what you think in the comments section and good luck studying!

-SAS Cert

Base SAS Certification Sample Question 13.1

I hope the below Base SAS Certification sample question is helpful to you when you're studying for the exam. Leave your answer as a comment below and good luck!

-SAS Cert


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Assume the variable employee_id in the ecsql1.salesstaff table has a length of 8, and the program below runs without errors. Which of the below statements is true about the variable employee_id2?


data work.sales_id (keep=employee_id2);
    set ecsql1.salesstaff (keep=employee_id);
    employee_id2 = put(employee_id,$9.);
run;


a) employee_id2 is a numeric variable with length 8
b) employee_id2 is a numeric variable with length 9
c) employee_id2 is a character variable with length 8
d) employee_id2 is a character variable with length 9

Base SAS Certification Sample Question 12.1

I hope the below Base SAS Certification sample question is helpful to you when you're studying for the exam. Leave your answer as a comment below and good luck!

-SAS Cert


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Which of the following is false about one-to-one merging?

a) The new dataset contains all variables from all input data sets
b) If there are same-named variables, the last dataset's variable replaces the earlier dataset's variable
c) The new dataset contains the total number of observations in the smallest original dataset
d) None of the above

Base SAS Certification Sample Question 11.1

I hope the below Base SAS Certification sample question is helpful when you're studying for the exam. Leave your answer as a comment below and good luck!

-SAS Cert

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What should the blank line below read to be able to output the sum of Qtr_total by the variable paid_by?


proc sort data=ecsql1.employee_donations out=work.employee_donations_sort;
    by paid_by;
run;


data work.donations (keep=paid_by Qtr_total);
    set work.employee_donations_sort;
    by paid_by;
    Qtr_total + Qtr1;
    if _____________;
run;


a) last paid_by
b) paid_by.last
c) paid_by.last = 1
d) last.paid_by = 1

Becoming Base SAS Certified Tip #2 - Buy the Practice Test

Hi everyone,

To elaborate on my 2nd point in the before blog post, it's very important to buy the Base SAS Certification practice test. This practice test will give you a great benchmark of what your strong and weak areas are and how your should structure the rest of your studying prior to exam day.


You can purchase the practice test from the SAS Institute for $55 at the link below:
https://support.sas.com/edu/schedules.html?ctry=us&id=851


The practice exam is very similar to the actual Base SAS Certification for SAS 9 exam, but there are a few key differences that you should be aware of:

Number of Questions:
The practice exam has 50 questions, while the actual Base SAS Certification exam has 64 questions. Because the practice exam has fewer questions, the SAS Institute recommends that you use 85 minutes to take the practice exam (vs. 110 minutes on the actual exam).

Exam Format:
The practice exam is delivered on one continuous HTML screen. In contrast, the actual Base SAS Certification exam displays only one question on the screen at a time. You are also able to flag questions on the actual exam and return to them later...but you can't do this on the practice exam.

Keeping Time:
There is a timer displayed on the actual Base SAS Certification exam, but this isn't available on the practice exam.



In addition, the SAS Institute claims that the percentage of question topics on the practice exam match the question weights on the actual Base SAS Certification exam. When I finished taking the practice exam, I went back through and wrote down which chapter each question tested...and for me, the top three chapters/sections were as follows:

1) Creating/managing variables
2) SAS functions
3) Creating list reports


Once you've completed the Base SAS Certification practice test, be sure to go back through the questions you missed and review these areas. Chances are you'll be seeing questions similar to these on the exam day.

I hope this has been helpful for you all. Good luck with your studying, and if you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave a comment below!

-SAS Cert

Base SAS Certification Example Question 10.1

Assume ecsql1.employee_donations has 6 observations, and qtr1 has 6 values listed below:

100
200
300
.
150
50


What is the value of donation_tot after the 5th DATA step iteration?


data work.donations;
     set ecsql1.employee_donations (drop=qtr2-qtr4);
     retain donation_tot 1000;
     donation_tot + qtr1;
run;


a) 0
b) 750
c) 1750
d) Data step fails due to errors


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Leave your answers as a comment below...good luck!

-SAS Cert