SAS Certification Prep Guide: Base Programming for SAS 9, Second Edition

I have had very little experience with SAS. I mostly learned SAS with examples from the internet.This book helped me a lot with getting my knowledge structured and learn all the little detailsthat are not so much relevant in real life programming but in the test. The book is easy to read and to understandand covers 95% of what is relevant in the test. I felt well prepared and had no problem passing the test.The down side: I found quite a few typos in the book, mostly copy and paste errors that show that the authors spent very little time proofreading (it's the 2nd edition). Although they were easy to detect, they still started bothering me. The book is really expensive and one can expect that the SAS Institute does a better job with putting the book together. Otherwise one gets the impression that their only concern is to get money out of their testing business.

I used this book as my single preparation source for the exam along with my one year SAS programming experience and I happily passed the test!. I actually found this book very clear and useful for exam purposes, with this book I learned and reinforced fundamental concepts that will strenghten my SAS skills. I definitely recommend this book!Is important to note that the book does not cover at 100% the topics included in the exam, but if you have a good understanding of the whole book you should not have any problems with the test.

I purchased this book after going through Ron Cody's "Learning SAS by Example." This book is a little lacking in actual practice exercises -- the chapter quizzes are nice, but they don't provide any real experience for a beginning SAS programmer. I would recommend this guide only if you have had experience with SAS and are preparing for the exam. Otherwise, check out a few other SAS books to get some practical experience before tackling this one.

The service from Amazon was really good where the book was delivered promptlyfrom the USA to New Zealand.I found the BASE SAS 9 certification prep guide really easy to read and tounderstand.... I would highly recommend the BASE SAS prep guidefor anyone going for certification.

I am planning to get certified and therefore purchased this book. It is very clear and straightforward book. I have some small problems understanding how to use accompanied CD however. Before learning this book i also recommend to read the Little SAS Book, so you are more familiar with the way SAS works.

You need learn all the staff in this book for the certification, but there are a lot of typos and wrong information (some were already revised for newer version).

Definitely a good reference book with many examples to follow. There are quizzes at the end of each chapter, so it can be used as a self-teaching guide too.

As the title suggests, SAS Certification Prep Guide: Base Programming for SAS 9, Second Edition is targeted at those planning to study and take the exam. The book also serves as a fairly comprehensive reference of Base SAS fundamentals with helpful examples and an occasional tip or trick.Unfortunately, the praise stops here. Considering the book's high price it is poorly edited with mistakes in the code examples, English grammar, explanation and even one error in the quiz answer key. For instance, on page 351, the picture provided as data output does not match the PROC PRINT procedure or data statement used in the example. It is even more aggravating to find that none of these errors are included in the online errata webpage. In fact, there is no indication of the edition to which the errata refers and, assuming the posted errata is from the latest edition, there are no hyperlinks to errata from previous editions. Furthermore, the CD-ROM is practically useless since most of the practice data does not match the in-text examples. Although this data can be used for practice--supplementing the given chapter examples, it must be copied, pasted and formatted as a text file or instream data before it can be used. Lastly, the book is billed as a `Prep Guide' for the exam, but the exam itself includes material not covered in this text. I was particularly dismayed to find actual exam questions with specific WHERE statement options or ODS destinations that were not once mentioned in the book.Assuming SAS has fixed these obvious shortcomings in the latest edition, there is no reason to purchase the flawed second edition. If not, potential buyers should be advised that other texts and online sources are a necessity in order to sufficiently prepare for the exam.

This book is slightly more expensive than some of the other books out there but the other books do not have a patch on this book! It is by far the best book for base SAS certification prep.Positive Points: It contains everythign that you will be tested on! Good value for money 10 or so examples of the questions asked in the exam at the end of each section so you can review your learning Inluds a CD with the practice data on so, if you have access to SAS, you can play with the data and code.Negative Points: Very hefty so not easy to carry around with you (I know, scraping the barrel there!)All in all - a book I would not have been without for the preperation of the exam and I will be advising everyone else who takes the exam to buy this book.

For preparing SAS Base Certification, you have made the right Choice for choosing this book.I read it once and I gave a test exam. Then I read it again focussed in my weaknesses and took the test exam again. I kept doing this for three months until I have got 95% of success steadily in the test exam. Then I took the real exam and I passed. I loved it.

It very good book I am so happy