Sample Questions

The following sample questions are not inclusive and do not necessarily represent all of the types of questions that  comprise the exams. The questions are not designed to assess an individual's readiness to take a certification exam.

SAS 9.4 Advanced Programming Performance-Based Exam

Performance-Based Programming Questions

Note: The programming projects are assessed with a scoring macro that is stored on the lab computer. At the end of your project, you will invoke the scoring macro and it will investigate the results of your project. It will

look at parameters and content of output data set as well as values of macro variables stored in the symbol tables. This macro will also investigate the code that you wrote to check that the problem was solved as requested. These

are broad checks, so there is still a significant amount of freedom in your chosen coding solution. For example, in the SQL topic, we want to ensure that an SQL procedure was used to create the output data set rather than a DATA Step. The scoring macro will return a 3-digit value to the SAS log. You will record this 3-digit value as your answer to the project to determine your score for the project.

Question 1

Open a new programming window to create ACT01.sas in c:\cert\programs.

Write a SAS program that will:

•    Create output data set work.ACT01 using sashelp.pricedata as input.

•    Use an array to increase the values of the price1 through price17 variables by 10%.

Run your program and troubleshoot as necessary. When you are finished with the project:

1.   Ensure that you have saved your program as ACT01.sas in c:\cert\programs.

2.   From the score.sas program, call the scoreit macro using ACT01 as the

parameter: %scoreit(ACT01).

What is the value for Response in the SAS log?

Correct Solution: All price values for all price1-through price17 will be increased by 10%. For example, price2 in observation 5 will now be 126.50. Arrays and do loops would be used in the program.

Question 2

Open a new programming window to create MAC01.sas in c:\cert\programs.

Write a DATA step that reads only the first observation of the sashelp.cars data set and stores the value of the Make variable in a macro variable named CarMaker.

The macro variable must be defined from within the DATA Step.

Run your program and troubleshoot as necessary. When you are finished with the project:

1.   Ensure that you have saved your program as MAC01.sas in c:\cert\programs.

2.   From the score.sas program, call the scoreit macro using MAC01 as the

parameter: %scoreit(MAC01).

What is the value for Response in the SAS log?  __

Correct Solution: The CarMaker macro variable will have a value of Acura. The program will include a symputx routine.

Question 3

Open a new programming window to create SQL01.sas in c:\cert\programs.

Write an SQL query that will:

•    Create output data set work.SQL01 using sashelp.cars as input.

•    Compute the average MPG_City for each group of Make. Name the calculated variable AvgCityMPG.

•    The output data should have 2 columns, Make and AvgCityMPG.

Run your program and troubleshoot as necessary. When you are finished with the project: 1.   Ensure that you have saved your program as SQL01.sas in c:\cert\programs.

2.   From the score.sas program, call the scoreit macro using SQL01 as the

parameter: %scoreit(SQL01).

What is the value for Response in the SAS log?  __

Correct Solution: An SQL query with agroup by clause will be written. The AvgCityMPG for MAKE=MINI will be 26.5.

Standard Questions

Question 4

Given the following SAS data sets ONE and TWO:

The following SAS program is submitted creating the output table THREE:

data three;

merge one (in = in1) two (in =

in2);    by num; run;

Which one of the following SQL programs creates an equivalent SAS data set THREE?

A.  proc sql; create table three as

select *

from one full join two

where one.num = two.num; quit;

Which SQL query will produce a report for tables in the ORION library which have had at least 5% of their physical rows deleted, as shown above?

A.  select MEMNAME 'Table', NOBS 'Physical Obs'      ,

DELOBS/NOBS '% Deleted' format=percent6.1

from dictionary.tables

where LIBNAME='ORION' AND DELOBS/NOBS >= .05;

B.  select Table_Name, Num_Rows 'Physical Obs'

, Deleted_Rows/Num_Rows '% Deleted'

format=percent6.1    from dictionary.DBA_TABLES    where

TABLESPACE_NAME='ORION'      AND Deleted_Rows/Num_Rows

>= .05;

C.  select MEMNAME 'Table', NLOBS 'Physical Obs'

, DELOBS/NLOBS LABEL='% Deleted' format=percent6.1 from dictionary.tables

where LIBNAME='ORION' AND DELOBS/NLOBS >= .05;

D.  select MEMNAME 'Table', NOBS 'Physical Obs'

, DELOBS/NOBS LABEL='% Deleted' format=percent6.1 from dictionary.members

where LIBNAME='ORION' AND DELOBS/NOBS >= .05;

correct_answer = "A"

Question 7

The following SAS program is submitted:

options                        ;

%abc(work.look,Hello,There);

In the text box above, complete the options statement that will produce the following log messages:

correct_answer = "mprint"

Question 8

The following SAS program is submitted:

%macro mysum(n);

%if &n > 1 %then  %eval(&n + %mysum(%eval(&n-1)));

%else &n;

%mend;

%put %mysum(4);