SAS® Base Programming Practice Exam Simulator

List Input, Column Input, Formatted Input with Informats (COMMA, DOLLAR, MMDDYY, DATE9), INFILE options (DSD, TRUNCOVER, MISSOVER), single trailing @ and double trailing @@, SAS libraries (LIBNAME), and system options (OBS, FIRSTOBS, YEARCUTOFF).

Compilation phase vs Execution phase, PDV variable resets, WHERE statement vs subsetting IF, IF-THEN/ELSE and SELECT-WHEN logic, Character functions (SUBSTR, SCAN, FIND, STRIP, COMPRESS, TRANWRD), Date functions (MDY, INTCK, INTNX, YRDIF), RETAIN and the Sum statement.

Concatenating & interleaving with SET, Match-merging with BY, FIRST. and LAST. automatic variables, IN= boolean tracking for inner/outer joins, OUTPUT statement for wide-to-tall reshaping, iterative DO loops, DO WHILE vs DO UNTIL, and 1D/2D SAS Array processing.

PROC SORT (NODUPKEY vs NODUPRECS, DESCENDING), PROC PRINT (NOOBS, ID, SUM, LABEL), User-defined formats with PROC FORMAT (ranges, LOW, HIGH, OTHER), PROC MEANS & SUMMARY (CLASS vs BY, AUTONAME), PROC FREQ (cross-tabs, MISSING, CHISQ), PROC REPORT, TRANSPOSE, and Output Delivery System (ODS PDF/HTML/RTF).

Full mock exam replicating Pearson VUE difficulty. PROC SQL queries (CALCULATED, CASE, INNER/LEFT/FULL joins, subqueries), Macro facility (%LET, &macro_var, %MACRO, CALL SYMPUTX, macro quotes), and Program Debugging (Lost card, invalid data, uninitialized variables, DATA step debugger).

Domain: Manage Data Hard

DATA work.accum;
    INPUT Score;
    RETAIN Total 0;
    Total = Total + Score;
    DATALINES;
10
.
20
;
RUN;

💡 Why B is Correct: On observation 1, Total = 0 + 10 = 10. On observation 2, Score is missing (.). Because an arithmetic addition operator (+) is used instead of the SUM function, missing values propagate! 10 + . = . (missing). Because Total is retained, it stays missing on observation 3 (. + 20 = .). If a Sum statement (Total + Score;) had been used instead, the missing value would have been ignored and Total would equal 30.

"The code formatting and the tricky questions on INFILE (TRUNCOVER vs MISSOVER) and RETAIN were identical to what I saw on my Pearson VUE exam. Passed with 88% on my first attempt!"

"The 5 separate tests helped me pace my preparation week by week. Set 3 on MERGE, FIRST./LAST., and Arrays completely eliminated my fear of BY-group processing questions."

"Best $25 I have spent. The detailed PDV rationales explain not just what the answer is, but why the other options are traps. Highly recommended for anyone preparing for the SAS Base Programming Specialist exam."