The Ultimate SAS Base Certification Course (Part 1)

(Note: this is Part 1 of the Ultimate SAS Base Certification Course. For Part 2, please visit here.)

The Ultimate SAS Base Certification Course includes 20 lessons, 150+ topics, 200+ practice exercises and unlimited mock exams.

This is the only study guide you need to prepare for the SAS Base Certification Exam.

The official SAS Base Certification covers four major topics:

• Access and create data structures
• Manage data
• Error handling
• Generate reports and output

All of these topics are covered in this course, and more!

The course includes the following lessons:

Lesson 1: Data Step Processing
How a SAS data set is created is a mystery, even for many experienced SAS programmers. However, understanding how a data set is created lays the foundation for many programming techniques. In this introductory lesson, you will learn, step-by-step, how SAS data sets are created in the backend. The concepts are explained in an easy-to-understand manner. This will not only help you with the SAS Base Certification Exam, but will also set you apart from other SAS users/programmers.

Lesson 2: SAS Libraries
SAS data sets are stored in SAS libraries. Whether you are creating data sets within SAS or you are importing data from external files (e.g., Excel, text), the data sets must be stored in the SAS libraries before you can use them. In this lesson, you will learn how you can access the data sets in the SAS libraries.

Lesson 3: Data Sets
SAS data sets are the foundation of SAS base programming. They store SAS data in a way that is easy for manipulation and analysis. In this lesson, you will learn how to display the data, and descriptor portion of the data set. You will also learn how to tackle the common SAS Base Certification questions related to the PRINT and CONTENTS procedures.

Lesson 4: Output Statement
The Output statement allows you to write specific observations to the output data set. In this lesson, you will learn how to control how observations are written to the output data set.

Lesson 5: Keep/Drop/Rename Statement
The Keep/Drop/Rename statements often appear on the SAS Base Certification Exam. These options are used in the data step. They allow you to control which observations to keep or drop in the output. The Rename statement allows you to rename variables. These are the relatively easier questions that you should know for the exam.

Lesson 6: If-then Statement
Every programming language allows users to do conditional processing. SAS is no exception. The If-then statement allows you to control how to process and manipulate the data based on whether specific conditions are met. In this lesson, you will get to work on 11 related exam questions that commonly appear in the exam.

Lesson 7: Where statement
The Where statement is similar to the If statement. The difference between the two is that the Where statement is processed before the data is read (into the PDV). This allows faster processing when filtering the data. The Where statement has some limitations, which are explained in this lesson.

Lesson 8: Set statement
The Set statement is one of the most (if not the most) commonly used statements in data step. It allows you to copy data from one data set into another. In this lesson, you will learn how to perform data set concatenation and interleaving using the Set statement. You will also learn how to use the Set statement within a Do-loop.

Lesson 9: Merge statement
The Merge statement is used to merge two or more data sets. It is similar to Proc SQL join. It allows you to merge data sets by matching the corresponding identifier variable(s). In this lesson, you will learn how to merge data sets using the (In=) option to perform advanced data step merging.

Lesson 10: Proc Print
The PRINT procedure is an easy way to display the data on the screen. In this lesson, you will learn how to use the NOOBS option, as well as the VAR and ID statement. You will also learn how to compute simple summary statistics using Proc Print. In addition, you will learn the Title and Label statements. These topics commonly appear in the exam.

Lesson 11: By-group processing
By-group processing is a relatively advanced topic in the SAS Base Certification Exam. These variables allow you to identify which are the first and last observations within the group. You will learn how to create and use two temporary variables (first.variable) and (last.variable) manipulate the data the way you want it.

Lesson 12: Numeric Functions
Numeric functions allow you to manipulate numeric variables. In this lesson, you will learn how to perform common mathematical operations, as well as how to use the SUM and MEAN functions in SAS.

Lesson 13: Character Functions
There are many character functions available in SAS that allow you to manipulate character variables. In this lesson, you will learn the commonly used character SAS functions such as the TRIM, CAT, CATT, SCAN, SUBSTR, TRANWRD and FIND.

Lesson 14: Input and Put functions
The Input and Put functions are used to convert numeric variables to character variables, and vice versa. In order to do the conversion properly, you need to know the concepts of formats and informats. These are fully explained in this lesson.

Lesson 15: Handling Date Values
Handling date values in SAS is a complex but essential topic. In this lesson, you will learn how date values are stored in SAS. You will also learn how to import and manipulate date values using date informats and date functions.

Lesson 16: Proc Import
Proc Import is one of the newer topics in the SAS Base Certification Exam. In this lesson, you will learn how to import data files in different formats, such as Excel, CSV and text. Practice data files are made available for you to practice importing data, which has become a major topic in the exam.

Lesson 17: Error Handling
Debugging errors is also one of the new topics in the SAS Base Certification Exam. You are expected to identify all syntax, data and logic errors in program code given to you in the exam. This, to most students, is one of the most challenging questions in the exam. In this lesson, you will learn all types of errors in SAS, and you will be well equipped to answer the related short-answer questions in the exam.

Lesson 18: Advanced Data Manipulation
SAS is a powerful software tool. It allows you to do any type of data manipulation task. In this lesson, you will learn the more advanced data manipulation techniques and procedures, such as Proc Transpose, Do-loop and Set statements in SAS.

Lesson 19: A simple SAS Macro
SAS macros allow you to save certain pieces of code that can be re-used for repetitive data manipulation tasks. It allows you to simplify your program and reduce the occurrence of bugs by not having to write repeating code. It is an advanced SAS programming technique that is new to the exam.

Lesson 20: Output Delivery System (ODS)
The Output Delivery System (ODS) allows you to write output to different file formats (such as Word, HTML and PDF, etc.). In this lesson, you will learn the syntax of the ODS statement, as well as how to tackle the common and related questions in the SAS Base Certification.