SAS Institute Updated A00-215 Exam Questions and Answers by zaynab

In SAS, character variables are indeed capable of holding alphabetic characters, numeric digits, and other special characters, which makes Option A the correct answer. This flexibility allows for storing a wide range of data as text, including combinations that may include symbols and numbers typically found in addresses, identification codes, or textual data that includes special characters. Unlike numeric variables, character variables do not interpret the data as numbers but as literal strings of characters. Options B, C, and D contain inaccuracies regarding how data types and values are treated in SAS. Specifically, numeric values in SAS are never enclosed in quotes (which contradicts B), character variables can exceed 200 bytes depending on the specific declaration (contradicting C), and while numeric variables can indeed include numbers, decimal points, minus signs, and scientific notation, they do not typically include currency symbols as part of the variable's numeric value (contradicting D).

References:SAS documentation on data types, SAS Institute.

Option C is correct. The set statement is used within a DATA step to read an existing SAS data set. In this case, set sashelp.shoes; reads the SASHELP.SHOES data set, and data work.total; specifies the creation of a new data set named TOTAL in the WORK library. The options A, B, and D are incorrect because they either use the wrong syntax or are not proper statements for reading an input data set and creating an output data set.

References:

• SAS 9.4 documentation on the DATA step.

Data set options in SAS, such as KEEP= (to specify variables to keep in a dataset) and RENAME= (to change the names of variables in a dataset), have specific rules for their usage:

• A. The options must be placed in parentheses - This is correct. When specifying dataset options in SAS, they must be enclosed in parentheses immediately following the dataset name, without any spaces in between.
• D. The options are placed after the data set name - This is also correct. Dataset options follow the dataset name and are enclosed in parentheses to modify how SAS reads or writes the dataset in that step.

Option B is incorrect because data set options are allowed in both DATA and PROC steps, provided they are relevant to the procedure being used. Option C is incorrect because data set options can be applied to both input and output datasets, depending on the context and specific operation being performed.

References: SAS 9.4 Language Reference: Concepts.

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."