I would say that the practice exam reasonably reflects the type of content and level of difficulty of the test. When I took the practice test, I tried to adhere to the time limit of 2 hours and 5 mins of the actual test. I would suggest that you time yourself with the programming assignments, and make sure that you are able to do them 8 to 10 mins each on average.
In the actual test, you will have two windows one containing the description of the problem and the questions, the other will have your sas programming environment. It was very hard for me to place the two windows next to each other, without having the need to scroll to see the rest of the content, and this may have an impact on your productivity in the programming assignment. Additionally, keep in mind that the cut and paste are disabled, and that also could have an impact on your productivity. So as you practice, try to have the same constraints to simulate more realistic conditions of the test. I did the practice exam the same day I took the test. I did the practice in the morning and the actual test in the afternoon. I did score about 40 points higher in the actual test. This may provide some evidence that the practice exam taken under simulated conditions of the actual test, may give you a reasonable idea of what to expect. I think if you score well above the passing grade in the practice exam it is reasonable to expect that you have a high likelihood of passing the test.
Going back to the test content, I did not see any surprises, i.e questions that were not covered in the prep guide, and the content guide. I do not think that you should expect that questions look exactly like the ones you have seen in the prep guide or the practice exam except for minor changes. What you could expect are different variations of questions testing the same content with a very similar level of difficulty. So if you feel that you really understand each of the items listed in the content guide and you are comfortable with them, then you will be able to deal with different variations of questions that could be thrown at you to test your understanding of a given item.
A note on time management as it may have a significant impact on your score. The test consisted of about 48 questions or so( I may be a couple of questions off). They are split 50-50, there were 8 programming assignments that had 2 to3 questions related to them, I do not recall, but may have had one or 2 that had 4. These programming assignments altogether make up about half of the questions, the low to mid-20s. You are allowed to skip sections or questions and come back to them. Have a plan on how you want to budget your time among the programming and non-programming questions. For example, you may want to decide to give yourself about 25 mins for the multiple questions and jump to those questions at any time in the test and take care of them and that will leave you about 100 mins for the programming questions. Be aware of the time, and make decisions when you feel that you may be spending too much time on one program.
Finally concerning documents and material that helps with the test. The prep guide and the practice exam are definitely worth it. You must ensure that you cover every point of the content guide. Generating a document where you answer each of the content items will be extremely helpful, not only you go through process of actually documenting your understanding of the item but you will also have at the end a 30-page document or so, that could serve as a summary review document and possibly a reference document in the future. There are 3 courses offered by SAS on coursera that cover the necessary material to prepare for the base certification, my understanding is the first 2 are equivalent to programming 1 and 2, and the third one is a review of certification material. You can try the courses for free for 7 days or officially enroll for $79/month. If you have the time and prefer to learn through having someone walk you through a concept then these courses could be worth a try for a month or so.
I hope that you find this helpful. Best of luck.
