Free Practice Questions for SAS Institute A00-215 Exam

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 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 type of error that does not produce expected results and does not generate errors or warnings in the log is a logic error. Logic errors occur when there is a flaw in the program's logic, which causes it to operate incorrectly, but the syntax is correct so it does not produce any error or warning messages. Unlike syntax errors which are mistakes in the program's code that prevent it from compiling or running, logic errors are more insidious because the program still runs but yields incorrect results. For example, a programmer may accidentally code an incorrect formula or use a wrong variable name that still exists, so the program runs but produces incorrect output.

References:

SAS documentation on error types.

In SAS, the correct syntax for assigning labels to variables is to use the LABEL statement within a DATA step or a PROC step. Labels are assigned to variables using the format variable='label'. The correct syntax for the LABEL statement is represented by option B.

Here’s the breakdown:

FName=’First Name’ correctly assigns the label First Name to the variable FName.

LName=’Last Name’ correctly assigns the label Last Name to the variable LName.

Each variable and label pair is separated by a space, and the overall statement ends with a semicolon, which is the proper syntax for a LABEL statement in SAS.

Options A, C, and D are incorrect due to various syntax errors like the use of the wrong character for the apostrophe, missing apostrophes, incorrect punctuation, and in the case of option C, an incorrect conjunction ‘and’ which is not used in LABEL statements.

References:

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

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

The correct answer is A: Ods excel='c:\report.xlsx' style=analysis;. This syntax is correct for the ODS EXCEL statement in SAS, where you specify the path and filename, followed by the 'style' option to apply a specific style template to the output Excel file. The 'style=analysis' is used to set the output appearance according to the 'ANALYSIS' style template provided by SAS. Option B is syntactically incorrect and does not use the 'style' option correctly. Option C incorrectly places a slash which is not syntactically valid in this context, and Option D misses the equals sign and quotes which are necessary for correct syntax in SAS.References:

SAS documentation on ODS EXCEL statement: SAS Support: ODS EXCEL Statement

In SAS, iterative DO statements are used to repeat a block of statements a specified number of times. These DO statements have a specific syntax that includes initializing a variable, setting an ending value, and specifying an increment (or decrement). The syntax generally follows the pattern: DO variable = start TO end BY increment;

Let’s evaluate each option provided:

A) Do 100 to 1200 by 100;This statement is syntactically incorrect because it lacks a variable to iterate over. An iterative DO loop must specify a variable that will take on each value in the specified range. The correct form should be something like do i = 100 to 1200 by 100;.

B) Do num = 1.1 to 1.9 by 0.1;This statement is valid. It initializes the variable num at 1.1 and increments by 0.1 until it reaches 1.9. This is a typical use of the iterative DO loop for non-integer increments.

C) Do year = 2000 to 2016 by 2;This statement is also valid. It initializes year at 2000 and increments by 2, going through values like 2002, 2004, etc., up to and including 2016. This is a standard use for iterating over years or other sequentially numbered items.

D) Do reverse = 10 to 1 by -1;This statement is valid. It initializes reverse at 10 and decrements by 1 until it reaches 1. Using negative increments is a legitimate approach for counting downwards.

References

SAS 9.4 Statements: Reference, "DO Statement."

SAS Support: DO Loop Documentation

Understanding how to properly format DO loops in SAS is fundamental for effectively managing repetitive tasks in your data analysis. Mistakes like those seen in option A can lead to syntax errors, preventing your code from executing. Always ensure that your loops are correctly structured and that each component of the loop is clearly defined.

The FORCAST dataset is created from the INVEST dataset, which has 10 observations as seen in the PROC PRINT report. For each observation in INVEST, three new observations are added in FORCAST, one for each year's balance calculation (year=1, year=2, year=3). This is achieved by the output; statement after each balance calculation, which writes the current state of the data step to a new row in the dataset. Therefore, since there are 10 original observations, and each leads to three new observations, the total number of observations in the FORCAST dataset will be 30 (10 observations from INVEST multiplied by 3 years each).

References:

SAS documentation on the DATA step and output statement, SAS Institute.

The correct statement to import a CSV file into SAS and create a dataset is option B. The PROC IMPORT statement is used in SAS to read data from external files and create a SAS data set. Let's break down why option B is correct:

datafile= specifies the location and filename of the external data file. In this case, "sales.csv" is the correct filename and format for a CSV file.

dbms=csv tells SAS that the format of the external data file is CSV (comma-separated values).

out=mydata.sales; specifies the name of the output SAS dataset. It consists of two parts: the libref mydata and the dataset name sales. This tells SAS to store the new dataset in a library called mydata with the dataset name sales.

Option A uses an incorrect syntax as it incorrectly specifies the data= option, which is not valid in this context. Also, the out= option is incorrectly quoted and terminated with a semicolon within the quotes.

Option C has a typo in the out= option (out=mydata.gales;), which incorrectly specifies the output dataset name. Additionally, it incorrectly specifies the data= option, which should actually be datafile=.

Option D has incorrectly quoted the out= option and uses a hyphen instead of an equals sign. Additionally, it does not use quotes around the filename, which may cause issues if the filename contains special characters or spaces.

References:SAS 9.4 documentation, specifically the PROC IMPORT statement: SAS Help Center: PROC IMPORT Statement