Who is Taking (or Have Taken) the SAS Base Programming Associate Certification Exam?

[SASsyEpiGirl85]

Good morning everyone,

I am new to SAS (and this community) and I was wondering if any has taken (or have taken) the exam for the SAS Base Programming Associate certification.

As an aspiring epidemiologist, I am extremely interested in becoming proficient in SAS, but I am trying to find easy-to-understand training materials. In addition, I would like to sit for the Base Programming Associate Certification exam (and then attempt additional certification exams). I reviewed the free SAS Programming 1: Essentials video on the official SAS website. However, the SAS Programming 2: Data Manipulation Techniques video is not free; does anyone know where I can obtain a free version? Also, for those who have taken the exam, if I study these two videos and follow along with the software, is that enough to pass the exam?

Thank for you for any guidance and recommendations.

[Haemoglobin17]

Hi SASsyEpiGirl85!

Why do you want to try the associate and not the performance based? It is true that the associate is easier, but at the end, as programmers, it's not so important to remember the exact number of bytes of a given type of variable, or abstract knowledge like that. It is more important that you are able too import and export, merge, filter and restructure tables, that is what the performance based tests. Anyway, SAS programming 1 alone is absolutely insufficient for the exam.

I'm pretty sure that, if you are a student they could give you access to SAS programming 2!

[MarkusWeick]

Hi @SASsyEpiGirl85, to reinforce the argument of @Haemoglobin17, I looked into the SAS Global Certified Professional Directory:

Globally there are only 107 entries for the "Associate" while there are tenthousands of entries für the "Specialist".

Best

Markus

[MarkusWeick]

Hi @SASsyEpiGirl85,

I took the Base Programming Specialist exam this year and can confirm that the two courses (SAS Programming 1: Essentials and SAS Programming 2: Data Manipulation Techniques) are sufficient if you do all included exercises. I think they are excellent examples of e-learnings.

My advise for all SAS exams: make sure that you can explain all objectives of the exam content guide.

Best

Markus

[Mark2010]

If you are looking for lower cost options (granted, it's still not free), check out SAS training that is available on Coursera.

When candidates are deciding whether to take the Associate or the Specialist, it boils down to experience and what job someone wants to do. The Specialist is more rigorous due to the lab/performance-based component. Anyone who doesn't have months of experience writing SAS code will find the Specialist exam challenging given the amount of code that needs to be written within a relatively short timeframe. It is appropriate for people who are seeking a job that will entail regular SAS programming for data manipulation, transformation, and introductory, exploratory statistics. The Associate is meant for people who have learned SAS but haven't had a lot of time to get experience writing code. They may want to demonstrate this knowledge with a credential. The job roles that they would seek would require understanding SAS code, being able to read and maybe edit others' SAS code, but not responsible for writing programs from scratch on a regular basis. It's a great fit for students. If they end up deciding to pursue a job that requires more proficiency, they could decide to take the Specialist exam then. 

[fja]

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@SASsyEpiGirl85 wrote:

I am new to SAS (and this community) and I was wondering [...]

Welcome to the Community @SASsyEpiGirl85 !

I think your question has pretty much been answered by now. As @Haemoglobin17 I personally would go for the performance based exam as well. But that depends on your programming skills. I found the time frame in the performance based exam to be quite tight ... 

To my best knowledge there is no free version of Programming 2 ... but there is this 30-days trial for the subscription. 😊

My personal recommendation is The Litte SAS Book (it's the 3rd time I find myself mentioning this today 😉 ). It is priced pretty reasonably and worth every ct. It is not a complete preparation for the exams but I will find it easy to fill the gap ... depending on your programming know-how of course.

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@SASsyEpiGirl85 wrote:

As an aspiring epidemiologist, I am extremely interested in becoming proficient in SAS, [...]

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If you are that dedicated then there is no way around learning to programm SAS, I trust. Well then: Let the horses go ... Good luck with your exam. 👍

Best

fja

[muthalib]

I will be taking the exam soon this year and done with Essentials 1. Yes, the second part is not free but is absolutely necessary to clear the exam. I believe the course on coursera which is a specialization of 4 courses is more than enough apart from some reading to reinforce practical and visual memories of codes. What I do is enroll for 1/4 course and finish it within 1 week (very doable unless you are working full time). Since I complete the course within a week, I will not be charged. Best part, part 1 and 2 are same as that provided in SAS studio. I then spend 1 week revising part 1 and get some hands dirty with coding. Next week will go through 2/4 course and then spend another week revising and practicing. The 3rd and 4th courses are practice and mock. It is a perfect course for base I believe. 

[Nietzsche]

The coursera course is just Programming 1 and 2 packaged for coursera platform, the content is the same. I personally can not recommend Programming 1 and 2. The prep guide is much better despite the numerous errors.