SAS Institute A00-215 - SAS Certified Associate: Programming Fundamentals Using SAS 9.4

Option B is correct. The DATE9. format in SAS displays dates in the ddMMMyyyy format, which corresponds to the example given (25JUN2019). This format writes dates with a two-digit day, a three-character month abbreviation, and a four-digit year. The other options do not match the correct format:

A is incorrect because ddMMMyy9. format would display a two-digit year.

C is incorrect because there is no such format as Ddmmmyyyy9. in standard SAS formats.

D is incorrect because Dmy9. does not correspond to the required format.

References:

SAS 9.4 documentation on date and time formats.

The correct syntax for creating two separate data sets based on a condition in SAS involves using a single DATA step with multiple data set names followed by a SET statement and conditional OUTPUT statements. Here's a breakdown of why option B is the correct answer:

data SUV Sedans;

set sashelp.cars;

if Type = 'SUV' then output SUV;

else if Type = 'Sedan' then output Sedans;

run;

This option correctly uses a single DATA step to declare two data sets (SUV and Sedans). It reads from the sashelp.cars data set and uses conditional statements to output observations to the respective data sets based on the value of the Type variable. The output statement is used to explicitly direct observations to the specified data set.

Option A: The syntax data=SUV data=Sedans; is incorrect. The correct syntax to create multiple data sets in a DATA step does not include equal signs (=).

Option C: The syntax within the conditional statements is incorrect (if Type = SUV and if Type = Sedan). The values for Type should be enclosed in quotes to specify that they are strings.

Option D: The syntax data= (SUV Sedans) ; is incorrect. The correct method to declare multiple data sets in a DATA step does not use parentheses or an equal sign.

References:The correctness of option B is based on standard SAS programming practices for conditional data manipulation within a DATA step. This approach is commonly documented in SAS programming resources such as the SAS 9.4 documentation and various SAS programming guides. The use of the output statement for directing data to specific datasets based on conditions is a fundamental technique in efficient data handling in SAS.

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.

In SAS program syntax, character strings are indeed case sensitive when enclosed in quotation marks. If you compare two character strings of the same letters but different cases, SAS will treat them as different values. For example, 'Hello' is not the same as 'hello'.

Option A is incorrect because the ampersand (&) is not used for comments in SAS; it is used for macro variable references. Option B is incorrect because global statements such as LIBNAME and options do not require a RUN statement to execute. Finally, option D is incorrect because SAS can process steps with multiple statements on the same line, provided that they are correctly separated by semicolons.

References

SAS 9.4 Language Reference: Concepts, "SAS Language Elements and Syntax."

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

Option A is correct. The (obs=10) option is used as a data set option within the proc print statement to limit the number of observations processed to the first 10. The syntax should be placed immediately after the data set name within parentheses. Options B, C, and D are incorrect because they either use the wrong option or place the obs option incorrectly outside of the parentheses or with incorrect syntax.

References:

SAS 9.4 documentation on the obs= data set option.

The PROC SORT statement that specifies the sort variable is: BY

The BY statement in PROC SORT is used to specify the variable(s) by which the data should be sorted.

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.

The reason the labels for MSRP, MPG_City, and MPG_Highway are not displaying in the PROC PRINT report is that the LABEL option was not used in the PROC PRINT statement. In SAS, even if you have label statements in your DATA step, you must also specify the LABEL option in the PROC PRINT statement for those labels to be used in the report output. Thus, the correct answer is Option A: You must use the LABEL option on the PROC PRINT statement.

References:

SAS documentation on the PROC PRINT statement and LABEL option, SAS Institute.