topic Re: Deleting 2 lowest values from a row of observations in SAS Programming

Deleting 2 lowest values from a row of observations

valarievil — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 22:49:59 GMT

Hello! I have a data set that looks like this:

ID H1 H2 H3 H4 H5 H6 H7 H8 H9

01 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10

02 10 8 5 10 10 0 9 10 3

03 9 10 8 10 9 10 10 10 6

04 7 10 7 8 10 0 10 0 10

05 5 10 6 10 4 10 10 9 10

I need to drop the lowest 2 homework scores and create a variable for the overall homework score for a student. So say for student ID 04, the two zero grades would be dropped and a percentage for homework would be (7+10+7+8+10+10+10)/70 = 88.6 % (homework scores are out of 10.

Ive tried commands like this in the data step:

oops1= min(of Q1--Q9);
if H1=min(of Q1--Q9) then drop H1;

But I'm not sure where to go from here. Based on my research I think I might need to build an array? Hopefully not cause I have very little experience with that. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Re: Deleting 2 lowest values from a row of observations

PaigeMiller — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 22:59:58 GMT

/* UNTESTED CODE */
data want;
    set have;
    call sortn(of h1-h9);
    average = mean(of h3-h9);
run;

CALL SORTN sorts H1-H9 in ascending order, thus H3-H9 are now the 7 largest (doesn't contain the two lowest) and you can average those.

I'm not sure what this will do if there are missing values in H1 through H9.

Re: Deleting 2 lowest values from a row of observations

valarievil — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 23:56:35 GMT

On of my lines is:
5 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
~~for HW 1-9. If the code worked as it should, I should get 2 as the output for average right? (5+9+0+0+0+0+0)/7=2. Instead I got 1.3571. Is my math wrong or is the code wrong?~~

NEVERMIND! I just had to change some variable names. ALL GOOD THANK YOU!