A00-215 SAS Institute SAS Certified Associate: Programming Fundamentals Using SAS 9.4 Free Practice Exam Questions (2025 Updated)

The PROC PRINT statement is used for printing SAS datasets. To customize the column headers in the report, you use the label statement within the PROC PRINT procedure to assign new labels to variables, and the label option in the PROC PRINT to activate these labels. The noobs option suppresses the printing of observation numbers in the report.

Option B has the correct syntax for what is being requested:

proc print data=cities label noobs; specifies the dataset to print with the label option to display variable labels and noobs to hide the observation numbers.

label Name='Employee Name' City='Birth City'; assigns the label 'Employee Name' to the 'Name' variable and 'Birth City' to the 'City' variable.

run; signifies the end of the PROC PRINT procedure.

Options A, C, and D are incorrect due to syntax errors:

A uses an incorrect option showlabelse instead of label and noobs.

C is incorrect because it lacks the label option in the proc print statement which is necessary to actually display the labels, and the labels are being incorrectly used within the proc print instead of in a label statement.

D has several issues: there is no display statement in SAS, the option noobs should be outside of the proc print statement, and the labels should be defined in a label statement, not within proc print.

References:

SAS 9.4 documentation for the PROC PRINT statement: SAS Help Center: PROC PRINT

The error messages in the SAS log indicate issues with the treatment of text as a character string. In SAS, character strings must be enclosed in quotation marks. The log shows that 'ABC Inc.' is treated as if it is a variable or an expression, which is causing a syntax error. Enclosing 'ABC Inc.' in quotation marks will correctly identify it as a character string. Therefore, Option B is the correct action to resolve the error messages. This error is evident as the log indicates it was expecting an arithmetic operator, which suggests that the text was misinterpreted as part of an expression.

References:

SAS documentation on character strings and data step options, SAS Institute.

In SAS, footnotes are set using the footnote statement and they will appear on all subsequent output until they are either changed or cleared. Based on the second image provided with the SAS code, the footnote for the second PROC PRINT report is set immediately before it runs.

The code sets footnote1 as 'Created by HR' and footnote2 as 'Confidential' initially. However, before the second PROC PRINT step, footnote2 is redefined as 'Draft - Do Not Distribute'. Since footnote1 is not redefined or cleared, it is no longer in effect for the second report.

Therefore, the only footnote that appears for the second PROC PRINT report is what is defined for footnote2 at that point in the code, which is 'Draft – Do Not Distribute'. That's why the correct answer is D.

References:

SAS 9.4 documentation for the FOOTNOTE statement: SAS Help Center: FOOTNOTE Statement

The correct answer is B. The DATA step in SAS is used to read, process, and create data sets. It can read from various sources, not just raw data files but also existing SAS datasets and external databases. It processes the data by executing operations on each observation and can create one or more SAS datasets as output. The other options are incorrect because:

A is incorrect because the DATA step is not limited to reading only raw data files.

C is incorrect because the DATA step can output multiple data sets using the OUTPUT statement.

D is incorrect because the DATA step does not have to be the first step in a program; it can be used anywhere in the program where data processing is required.

References:

SAS 9.4 Language Reference: Concepts, "DATA Step"

SAS documentation on processing data with the DATA step.

The SUM statement in SAS is used to sum values across observations, adding the value of the expression on the right side of the statement to the variable on the left. It does not use an equal sign (eliminating A), only one variable can be on the left-hand side of a SUM statement (eliminating B), and it is not initialized to 1 by default (eliminating D). What makes the SUM statement particularly useful is that it ignores missing values when summing across observations, which means that missing values do not affect the sum (option C is correct).

References:

SAS documentation on the SUM statement, SAS Institute.

In a DATA step concatenation in SAS, when multiple datasets are listed in a SET statement, SAS concatenates the datasets vertically, stacking them one on top of the other. The length of variables in the resulting dataset is determined by the first dataset that appears in the SET statement. If the same variable appears in multiple datasets, SAS uses the length as it is first encountered. It does not require columns with the same name to be renamed; rather, it stacks them directly. There is no maximum number of tables that can be listed in a SET statement for concatenation; more than two can be concatenated. Lastly, concatenation combines data vertically, not horizontally as option D suggests.

References

SAS 9.4 Language Reference: Concepts, "Concatenating Data Sets."

In the PROC PRINT statement, the LABEL option is used to display variable labels in the report. If the variables in the dataset have labels associated with them, the LABEL option will ensure that these labels are used in the output instead of the variable names.

Here's how the LABEL option is used:

proc print data=sashelp.class label; (assuming sashelp.class is the dataset in question)

The LABEL keyword after the dataset name within the PROC PRINT call activates the use of variable labels in the output report.

The other options provided are incorrect for the following reasons:

SHOWLABELS is not a valid SAS option.

COLS does not exist as a PROC PRINT option in SAS.

LABELS= is not a correct syntax for any SAS procedure.

References:

SAS 9.4 documentation for the PROC PRINT statement with LABEL option: [SAS Help Center: PROC PRINT]

The PROC MEANS report shown in the image displays statistics for a single variable Age with no decimal places. The correct SAS code to generate such a report is option D, which uses the PROC MEANS procedure with the maxdec=0 option to control the number of decimal places displayed (in this case, zero) and specifies Age as the analysis variable using the var statement.

The PROC MEANS procedure computes descriptive statistics for numeric variables. The maxdec=0 option is used here to remove decimal places from the report output, which matches the output shown where the mean, standard deviation, minimum, and maximum are all integers.

The other options are incorrect for the following reasons:

A uses the class statement, which is not appropriate here because Age is not a classification variable but an analysis variable.

B uses the group statement, which is not a valid statement in the PROC MEANS procedure.

C uses the by statement, which requires the data to be sorted by the BY variable and does not fit the output provided since it would produce separate statistics for each value of Age.

References:

SAS 9.4 documentation for the PROC MEANS statement: SAS Help Center: PROC MEANS

When using a BY statement in a DATA step, SAS creates two temporary variables for each BY variable: FIRST.variable and LAST.variable. These are used to indicate the beginning and end of each BY group.

For Ellen's observation:

First.State=1 because this is the first occurrence of the state "OH" in the dataset when sorted by the state variable, which makes it the beginning of a new group for "OH".

Last.State=0 because Ellen is not the last observation

for the state "OH" group. In the given dataset snippet, there appears to be only one observation for the state "OH", but since the data is sorted by state, and we don't see another "OH" below Ellen, we can deduce that Ellen's observation is not the last "OH" observation in the entire dataset. If there were no more "OH" observations following Ellen's, then Last.State would be 1.

The FIRST.variable is set to 1 for the first observation in each BY group and 0 for all other observations in the group. Conversely, LAST.variable is set to 1 for the last observation in each BY group and 0 otherwise. Since we're assuming that the dataset is larger than the snippet shown, and the data continues beyond what is visible, we must assume there are more observations for "OH" unless indicated otherwise.

References

"SAS 9.4 Language Reference: Concepts." SAS Institute Inc.

"BY-Group Processing" in "SAS Programming 1: Essentials" course material, SAS Institute.

In SAS, character variables are indeed capable of holding alphabetic characters, numeric digits, and other special characters, which makes Option A the correct answer. This flexibility allows for storing a wide range of data as text, including combinations that may include symbols and numbers typically found in addresses, identification codes, or textual data that includes special characters. Unlike numeric variables, character variables do not interpret the data as numbers but as literal strings of characters. Options B, C, and D contain inaccuracies regarding how data types and values are treated in SAS. Specifically, numeric values in SAS are never enclosed in quotes (which contradicts B), character variables can exceed 200 bytes depending on the specific declaration (contradicting C), and while numeric variables can indeed include numbers, decimal points, minus signs, and scientific notation, they do not typically include currency symbols as part of the variable's numeric value (contradicting D).

References:SAS documentation on data types, SAS Institute.

https://v8doc.sas.com/sashtml/lrcon/z0961108.htm

In SAS, the automatic variable _N_ represents the number of times the DATA step has iterated. It starts at 1 and increments by 1 each time the DATA step loops back to the top. This variable can be used within the DATA step to monitor the iteration count but is not written to the output data set. The other options, A, C, and D, are not automatically created variables that track iterations in the DATA step.

References:

SAS documentation on automatic variables.

The code creates two datasets, preteen and teen, based on the age variable from the sashelp.class dataset. The if statement checks each observation, and if the age is less than 13, the observation is written to the preteen dataset; otherwise, the observation is written to the teen dataset.

From the provided frequency table, we can see that there are 7 observations with ages less than 13 (2 for age 11 and 5 for age 12), so the preteen dataset will have 7 observations. Since the sashelp.class dataset has a total of 19 observations, the remaining 12 observations (19 total - 7 preteen = 12 teen) will be written to the teen dataset.

Thus, the answer is: B. preteen will have 7 observations and teen will have 12 observations.

References:

SAS documentation on the DATA step and IF-THEN/ELSE logic, SAS Institute.

To create SAS date values, the correct syntax involves specifying the date in a string format followed by the letter 'd'. This indicates to SAS that the string should be interpreted as a date value. Therefore, the correct answers are:

A. "10/19/2019"d - This format directly specifies the month, day, and year, enclosed in quotes followed by 'd', which SAS correctly interprets as a date value.

C. "19Oct2019"d - This format uses a three-letter abbreviation for the month combined with the day and year, also followed by 'd'. This is another valid way to specify a date in SAS.

Option B, mdy(10, 19, 2019), is incorrect because while the MDY function does create date values from month, day, and year components, the function itself should be used within a DATA step or another context where SAS functions are evaluated, and it doesn't directly create a date literal in the same way as options A and C.

Option D, mdy(19, Oct, 2019), is syntactically incorrect because the MDY function expects numeric arguments for the month, day, and year, and "Oct" as a literal month name is not a valid numeric argument.

References: SAS 9.4 Language Reference: Concepts.

The correct answer is A. The SET statement in SAS is used within a DATA step to specify which existing SAS dataset is to be read. This statement is used to read in data from an existing SAS dataset to be processed in the current DATA step. The SET statement does not specify an output data set; that is determined by the name specified in the DATA statement.

Options B, C, and D are incorrect because:

B and C are incorrect as the SET statement is not used in the PROC SORT step at all.

D is incorrect because the SET statement specifies the input dataset, not the output dataset, in the DATA step.

References:

SAS 9.4 Language Reference: Concepts, "DATA Step Processing"

SAS documentation on the SET statement.

The SAS program provided includes a PROC FORMAT step that defines a numeric format called Syn and applies this format to the variable answer in the PROC PRINT step. The format maps the value '0' to 'No', '1' to 'Yes', and all other values to 'Unknown'.

However, there is a syntax error in the PROC FORMAT step: it uses a dollar sign before Syn, which is used to indicate character formats, but the format is defined for numeric values (0 and 1). Therefore, when applying this format to the answer variable in PROC PRINT, it should not have a dollar sign, it should be format answer Syn.; instead of format answer $yn.;.

The correct output based on the given code, assuming the error with the dollar sign is corrected, would be as follows:

For numeric values 0 and 1, 'No' and 'Yes' would be displayed, respectively.

For any other numeric value, 'Unknown' would be displayed.

For character values, the format would not apply and the actual values would be displayed.

Given that the values in the 'answer' column are numeric, the program will format them according to the defined Syn format. Thus, the report corresponding to Option D, which shows numeric values unformatted, would be the one created. This indicates that the format was not applied because of the syntax error with the dollar sign.

References:

SAS 9.4 documentation for the FORMAT procedure and statement: SAS Help Center: PROC FORMAT

The default length of numeric variables in SAS data sets is 8 bytes.

In SAS, the default byte size of a numeric variable is 8 bytes. This allows for a significant amount of precision and a wide range of numeric values to be stored within a numeric variable, regardless of the actual number of digits in the number being stored.

References:

SAS documentation on numeric variables, SAS Institute.

The report shown in the image is a two-way frequency table generated by the PROC FREQ procedure which shows the frequency and percentage distribution of two categorical variables. The correct answer is option B:

proc freq data=cars; tells SAS to use the PROC FREQ procedure on the dataset cars.

tables make*drivetrain; requests the frequency table for the cross of make and drivetrain. The asterisk (*) denotes a two-way table of the two categorical variables.

run; indicates the end of the proc freq step.

The resulting table in the output has the statistics for Make broken down by Drivetrain category, which matches the structure seen in the provided image.

Options A, C, and D do not correctly request the two-way table of make by drivetrain. Specifically, C and D reverse the order, which would change the orientation of the table in the output, and A is missing the asterisk (*) which is needed for the cross-tabulation of the two variables.

References:

SAS 9.4 documentation for the PROC FREQ statement: SAS Help Center: PROC FREQ

To rename a variable when reading a dataset in SAS, you use the rename= option inside the parentheses following the dataset's name in the set statement. The correct syntax for renaming the variable 'Name' to 'StudentName' is: rename=(oldname=newname). Therefore, the correct option is A, which correctly places the old variable name 'Name' first, followed by an equal sign, and then the new variable name 'StudentName'. The parentheses enclose the rename operation, and it is correctly nested within the set statement.

References:

SAS documentation on the RENAME= data set option, SAS Institute.

The correct answer is C. The DATA step and PROC PRINT steps ran without errors. In the SAS log shown, there is a clear error in the PROC SORT step because of the use of an incorrect option by ascending Increase which caused the "Variable ASCENDING not found" error. However, the DATA step completed successfully, as indicated by the "NOTE" that follows it, confirming that 56 observations were read from the SASHELP.SHOES data set where Region is Africa. Additionally, the PROC PRINT step also completed successfully, indicated by the "NOTE" at the bottom of the log which confirms that 56 observations were read from the WORK.AFRICA data set, implying the PROC PRINT step executed without issue.

A is incorrect because the error in PROC SORT did not cause the program to stop; SAS continued processing the next steps. B is incorrect because the PROC SORT step did not run successfully. D is incorrect because the PROC PRINT step did not fail; it ran successfully.

References:

SAS documentation on error messages.

Understanding the SAS log and error messages.