Hello, everyone! I’ve been prepping for the clinical trials exam for a while, and for the most part it’s very straightforward, but there’s a certain incongruence in the materials that I was hoping someone with knowledge of the exam could clarify.
For example, a variety of books are mentioned as helpful for exam preparation, but much of their content go above and beyond what the content guide says should be known. “Implementing CDISC: An End to End Guide” covers how to automate the creation and management of SDTM datasets with macros, but nowhere in the guide does it state that this is necessary information, although macro programming is mentioned separately from being able to “describe the structure and purpose of SDTM.”
We also have a vague “Manage Clinical Trials Data” section that mentions basic data management, like how to sort observations, identify outliers; etc. Nothing nearly as in depth as Implementing CDISC implies we need to know.
I’ve also noticed occasions when the SAS SQL course is stated as prerequisite knowledge, but then in other resources, it’s not listed at all. In the exam content guide, it's simply stated that we need to be familiar with SAS SQL dictionaries, as opposed to the entire syllabus of the course. Even the SAS Statistics 1 course that’s mentioned as a test prep resource seems to cover much more than the statistical analysis section of the content guide implies we should know, like logistic regression; ANOVA, etc. I know these techniques are important on the job, but does the exam test for them, or does it just test for descriptive statistical procedures, proc freq, and proc t test, as the exam content guide indicates?
I just don’t want to waste my time prepping for the exam. I’d rather focus on the exam content, improve my chances of getting the cert, and focus on other important info not tested by the exam afterwards. Right now, I'm getting the vibe that it's really the "SAS Programming in the Pharmaceutical Industry" book and the base programming 1 and 2 classes that cover everything required. Previous posts I've seen pretty much seem to align with this, but clarification would be appreciated. Many thanks in advance.
