Hi:
The recommended preparation for the Base Programming Specialist certification exam are the Programming 1 and Programming 2 classes. And, the recommended preparation for the Statistical Business Analyst exam are the Statistics 1 and the Predictive Modeling using Logistic Regression classes. But if you are completely new to SAS, you'd need to be familiar with the content in Programming 1 and Programming 2, even without the certification credential for the Base exam because Programming 1 is the recommended level of knowledge before you take Statistics 1 and both Statistics 1 and Programming 2 are the recommended level of knowledge before you take the Predictive Modeling course.
So starting with Programming 1 is still a good idea, if you are completely new to SAS. If you've been using SAS for a while (2-3 years), then you might be OK to skip Programming 1 and Programming 2, and jump straight to Statistics 1 and Predictive Modeling using Logistic Regression assuming you're comfortable with the basic concepts and DATA step programming,
It's a good idea to look at both Content Guides to see whether you're comfortable with the Programming 1 and Programming 2 topics before you start studying the other 2 classes and then find that you need to brush up on the basics.
Cynthia