Missing file in practice data SAS Specialist Prep Guide.

[Nietzsche]

Does anyone have a copy of the stock.xlsx file used in the official SAS Specialist prep guide (page 52) but is missing in the data set provided by SAS?

I downloaded the data set from the official page here https://support.sas.com/en/books/certification-guides.html

if anyone has a copy and upload it here that would be great for me and future readers.

[Nietzsche]

while searching for stock.xlsx online, I found someone already made a complaint on Amazon three and half years ago about the data used in book not matching what is being provided by SAS institute on their website for this guide. 

Is there anyway the SAS community can get SAS institute to provide remedy to this issue? 

The SAS prep guide is like the go to material for the SAS BASE exam and the data set is missing/not matching.

3.5 years should be plenty of time to get the correct data loaded.

[Cynthia_sas]

Hi:
I don't know about stock.xlsx specifically. However, I do know from getting student questions in the past that some of the examples in the book are for illustration purposes only. I believe the Prep Guide data contains most of the bigger files that you need to practice but that not all SAS data or CSV or XLSX files are contained in the data for practicing. In our Programming 1 class, which is free, we provide many XLSX and CSV and TAB delimited files that you can practice with. The material in the Prep Guide is intended to complement the material in Programming 1 and Programming 2 -- not completely be the only material to study.
Cynthia
In looking at pages 52-53 in the Prep Guide it looks like this section complements the material in Programming 1, our free e-learning class, on the use of the XLSX engine to import Excel sheets into SAS tables.
Cynthia

[Nietzsche]

Hi Cynthia: 

 I do know from getting student questions in the past that some of the examples in the book are for illustration purposes only

 Why not illustrate with data that can be replicated by the reader? There are so many files he can use from data set provided or from sashelp, why use a data what's no available to the reader?

I believe the Prep Guide data contains most of the bigger files that you need to practice but that not all SAS data or CSV or XLSX files are contained in the data for practicing.

yeah, why is that?

In our Programming 1 class, which is free, we provide many XLSX and CSV and TAB delimited files that you can practice with. The material in the Prep Guide is intended to complement the material in Programming 1 and Programming 2 -- not completely be the only material to study.

I don't think so. No where in the prep guide does it ever say it is complimentary to the programming 1 and programming 2. Programming 1 and 2 wasn't even mentioned in the Specialist prep guide.

Programming 1 and 2 uses different data sets for illustration, programming 1 and 2 uses mainly storm and national park data sets, prep guide does not use the same data set.

Readers should be able to access the data files used in the book without having to enrol into programming 1 and 2.

Just in case what you said is true, I just checked, I don't see stock.xlsx in either programming 1 or 2 data sets.

[Cynthia_sas]

Hi:
If you look at the web site for the Base Programmer Specialist certification, it clearly shows that Programming 1 and Programming 2 are recommended as preparation for the exam. Here's that web site: https://www.sas.com/en_us/certification/credentials/foundation-tools/base-programming-specialist.htm... and if you scroll down to the middle of the page, this is where it recommends those classes as shown below:

I'm sorry I was not clear in my statement. The specific file you're looking for STOCK.XLSX is not in the Programming 1 or Programming 2 files, you are correct. I did not mean to imply that you would find that exact file in the course data. Within the class, however, there are other XLSX files that you could use to test using the XLSX Libname engine.

I hope this clarifies my previous response about which files I was recommending you use.
Cynthia

[Nietzsche]

CDRates file is missing on page 217 is missing.

[Cynthia_sas]

Hi:

  Here's what is known from a close reading of page 217 in the Prep Guide:

1) WORK.CDRATES has 3 variables INSTITUTION (character variable), RATE and YEARS (both numeric variables)

2) WORK.COMPARE will contain all 3 of these variables and a new variable called INVESTMENT

3) The goal is to start with an INVESTMENT value of $5000 and then calculate the investment at the end of the number of YEARS specified in the input file for each institution using the rate for that institution.

4) The input data WORK.CDRATES has only 3 rows of data, as shown below in Figure 11.3:

This is a good example of a case where it is possible to make the input data set WORK.CDRATES by using a simple DATA step program using DATALINES as the method of reading the input data. Learning how to make data to test with is a useful skill when learning new concepts because it allows you to test concepts with your own example scenarios or with small examples like this.

  Then, once you have created WORK.CDRATES, you can run the program as shown on page 217 to examine how the DO loop operates. In the program on page 217, there is an implied OUTPUT at the end of the program, so you'll only get 3 rows in the output data set. However, you can also modify the program to ask yourself "what if" there was an explicit OUTPUT inside the DO loop, then you'd get 12 rows in the output data set. Here are those examples:

Cynthia

UPDATE:

 Good news!  I looked at the zip file again and realized that I looked in the wrong program. In the cert folder, there is a file called "cre8workdata.sas" and this program seems to make many of the WORK datasets used in the Prep Guide, as shown below where you can see WORK.CDRATES is created:

[PaigeMiller]

Hello @Cynthia_sas 

Perhaps you could also comment on @Nietzsche 's other issue in this thread: https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/Format-was-not-found-or-could-not-be-loaded/m-p/84405...