SAS Certification Prep Guide: Base Programming [Paperback]

SAS Institute (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2004

Prepare for the SAS Base Programming Exam with the only guide authorized by the SAS Certified Professional Program. Increase your credibility as a technical professional, expand your knowledge of SAS software, and increase your career options and marketability by becoming a globally recognized SAS Certified Professional. Designed for new and experienced SAS users who want to prepare for the SAS Base Programming certification exam, this comprehensive guide covers all of the objectives tested on the exam and more. Major topics include basic concepts, producing reports, creating and modifying SAS data sets, and reading various types of raw data. Each chapter includes a quiz on the chapter's contents. Answer keys are included. Includes a free CD-ROM with tutorials, practice data, and sample programs to test your SAS skills!

This book prepares you for the current SAS Base Programming Exam, which is available through December 31, 2006. Certification credentials are valid for three years.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The SAS® Certification Prep Guide: Base Programming provides a comprehensive way to learn Base SAS® software. -- Dana Rafiee Destiny Corporation

The lessons, quizzes, and tutorials on CD work well to construct a solid study guide and reference for certification preparation. -- Tad Richard Intellicisions Data Inc

This book is a helpful reference and review with summary, points to remember, and quizzes at the end of chapter. -- David Septoff, Principal Zencos Consulting LLC

This methodical and detailed study guide provides an excellent review for the certification exam. We definitely recommend this Guide. -- Marje Fecht, Senior Partner Prowerk Consulting LLC

Product Details

• Paperback: 848 pages
• Publisher: SAS Publishing (September 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590473353
• ISBN-13: 978-1590473351
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #872,427 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Objectives met, but aimed at beginners, January 20, 2006

By 

D. Russell (Dunedin, New Zealand) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: SAS Certification Prep Guide: Base Programming (Paperback)

I have >3 years experience in SAS, computer science training, got 90% in exam.

The main aim of this book is to prepare you for the SAS Base Programming Certification and I feel that this book did a good job at meeting this objective. It took me 2 weeks to read this book, 2 weeks to revise selected topics and do the practice exam (not part of the book) then sat the real exam. I highly recommend purchasing the "practice exam" in addition to this book which helps you get your 'eye-in' on how the questions in the exam are structured.

For the beginners, i think you'll find this book is one of the best and cheapest tools for learning SAS quickly. It's a must buy.

For the experienced, you may find this book rather frustrating at times. A lot of information is repeated and it jumps around a bit. The quizes at the end of each chapter are sometimes ambiguous. Don't worry, the exam questions are clear. A trivial example is Chapter 1, questions 3 and 4 - the questions show a contents of a dataset in what looks to be an html table, and apparently we are able to tell whether a variable is character or numeric by looking at the variables content! The questions should have stated something like "Assuming that no formats have been permanently stored with the variables.....". Sometimes the author forgets to include _ERROR_ when displaying the contents of the Program Data Vector. The book sometimes refers to version specific information but doesn't inform the reader that the information is version specific. e.g. page 193, the book states that the maximum length of the format name in a PROC FORMAT is 8 characters. The on-line SAS Doc states under "What's New in SAS 9.0, 9.1, 9.1.2, and 9.1.3".... "The maximum length for character format names is increased to 31. The maximum length for numeric format names is increased to 32.". The authors were using version 9 of SAS for some parts of the book, eg page 162. All anomalies i found in this book were trivial.

So, if you want a cheap but very effective tool for preparing for the Base exam then buy this book. If you want to boost your exam confidence then i recommend purchasing the practice exam from SAS. If you're using SAS regularly then you should also become familiar with using the SAS on-line help.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stellar Reference and Comprehensive Review., March 17, 2005

By 

kthdimension (Vienna, Austria) - See all my reviews

This review is from: SAS Certification Prep Guide: Base Programming (Paperback)

This book delivers on its objective to provide the reader w/ an adequate review of the SAS BASE exam content. The quizzes at the conclusion of each chapter give the reader a good sense of where they are deficient and, more importantly, how the questions are framed on the exam. What is not advertised, however, is what the book also does well: serve as a reference. I appreciated the discussion on how SAS "thinks" (e.g. processes data) as well as the chapters on ARRAYs, INPUTting data, and using PROC REPORT. This book is a must-have for any SAS user seeking to validate their skill set and will also serve as a valuable adjunct to their SAS library.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for learning SAS fundamentals, February 4, 2006

By 

Pi (Orlando, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: SAS Certification Prep Guide: Base Programming (Paperback)

I have recently purchased this book for preparing myself for the SAS base programmers test. I find the book very helpful in strengthening my SAS fundamentals. As I haven't written the test yet, I cannot comment on its usefulness for the test prep.

The book also comes with a CD-ROM containing SAS examples. But I did not find it very interesting as they don't motivate you to work on the programs or assignments. They are just examples, as good as the examples in the text.

The book is not perfect only because of the CD-ROM feature, else it would get my *****.