Top 50 SAS Interview Questions And Answers

Introduction

SAS (Statistical Analytics System) is a popular tool for Data Analytics and is pretty easy to learn especially for those people who are friendly with SQL. SAS is one of the leading software systems for data analysis and report writing. Works amazingly when it comes to handling data management, advanced analytics, multivariate analysis, business intelligence, criminal investigation, and predictive analytics. 

So, if you are tech-savvy and want to hire as a SAS expert then this post on sas logical interview questions is a perfect guide for you to learn all important sas interview questions that are useful to crack the job interview.

Here we have a list of top 50 sas interview questions that may be asked during your SAS interview.  We have tried to cover basic, intermediate, and advanced concepts of SAS. This guide will help you with questions ranging from simple conceptual questions for fresher to advanced sas interview questions for experienced.

The questions are segregated based on the difficulty level and you can pick the most relevant section as per your level of expertise to reap the maximum benefits from this sas interview question guide. 

Following are frequently asked SAS SQL Interview Questions for freshers as well as experienced to boost your sas interview preparation.

Basic SAS Interview Questions For Freshers

Q1). How will you define the SAS (Statistical Analytics System)?

Answer 

This is the most expected question asked by interviewers if you are a fresher. This is a software suite that is mainly needed for data analytics, business intelligence, data management, multivariate analysis, predictive analysis, etc. The concept was introduced by the SAS Institute and provides an interactive graphical user interface with plenty of advanced options by SAS language. The interface can be quickly accessed by non-technical users too and easy to learn by anyone.

Q2). Why should you choose SAS over other data analytics tools?

Answer 

Here Is a List of Reasons That Will Help You Explain Why Should You Choose Sas Over Other Data Analytics Tools –

• SAS is quite easy to learn even by non-technical users, especially if you have a SQL background.
• SAS Enhance data handling capabilities,can mine, alter, manage and retrieve data from a variety of sources and perform statistical analysis on it.
• SAS has an interactive graphical interface that can be customized with little learning only.
• SAS has a wide range of tools where deployments are well tested and controlled in a real-time environment.
• SAS is a market leader in jobs at the global level. It currently holds 70 percent of the market share.

Q3). How will you explain the features of the benefits of the SAS tool?

Answer 

SAS Tool Can Provide the Following Benefits for Your Business –

• Effective Business Solutions
• Market leader in Data Analytics
• A DBMS software for data access management
• Excellent Reporting and graphics
• Offer great Visualization as graphs or charts (either simple or complex)

Q4).  What are the SAS framework capabilities?

Answer 

The SAS framework has four capabilities, these are Analyze, Access, Manage, and Represent.

Q5). What is the meaning of OUTPUT Statement in a SAS program?

Answer 

Output statement is used to save the summary statistics in a SAS dataset. This information can be used further for creating more customized reports.

Q6). What is the meaning of the STOP Statement in a SAS program?

Answer

The STOP statement causes SAS to stop processing the current data step immediately and resume processing statements after the execution of the current data step.

Q7). How is the “drop = dataset” option used in the set statement?

Answer 

If you are interested in processing a certain set of variables and don’t want to appear in the new dataset then the “drop = dataset” option is used in the set statement.

Q8). How is the “drop = dataset” option used in the data statement? 

Answer 

If you are not interested in processing a certain set of variables and don’t want to appear in the new dataset then the “drop = dataset” option is used in the data statement.

Q9). How data is accessed from an external data file in SAS?

Answer 

When data is accessed from some external file then only observations are considered and variables need to be declared again if you want to use them.

Q10). How data is accessed from an existing dataset in SAS?

Answer 

If you want to access data from the existing dataset then use the SET statement and values of variables will be retained from one observation to another.

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Advanced SAS Interview Questions For Experienced

Q11).  Name a few data types that are frequently used in SAS.

Answer

They are divided into two categories majorly – Character and Numeric.

Q12). How will you differentiate functions and procedures in SAS?

Answer 

In the case of functions, the values of arguments are supplied across an observation. In the case of procedures, there is only one given to each variable.

Q13). How are the SUM function and the “+” operator different in SAS?

Answer

The sum function will return the total of non-missing arguments and the “+” operator returns the missing value of any argument value left behind.

Q14). What is the benefit of the end = data set option in SAS?

Answer 

To read the last value from an unsorted dataset to appear in the new data set, end = data set option is used in SAS.

Q15). Give an example when SAS is not able to convert the character value to numeric value automatically.

Answer 

When a dollar ($) sign is added before a variable, the conversion process is blocked by the dollar sign and it is not converted to numeric values later.

Q16). How will you differentiate the PROC SUMMARY and the PROC MEANS?

Answer 

Proc Means produces statistics for subgroups only if it is sorted first. On the other hand, Proc Summary can produce statistics for all groups automatically.

Q17). How can you delete duplicate values in a dataset?

Answer 

To delete the duplicate values in a dataset, use the “Proc SQL” command.

Q18). What is the benefit of using the “Proc SQL” command in SAS?

Answer 

PROC SQL is a powerful Base SAS Procedure that combines the functionality of DATA and PROC steps into a single step. It can sort, summarize, subset, join (merge), and concatenate datasets, create new variables, and print the results or create a new table or view all in a single step

First of all, it will scan each statement for syntax errors. Now, it will decide how the SQL query should be executed in SAS. A particular table is loaded into the data engine and related calculations are performed. After this, the final table is created in the memory and it is sent to the OUTPUT table described in the SQL

Q19). Can you explain the PUT function and INPUT function in SAS?

Answer 

For numeric to-character conversion, the put function is used. For the character-to-numeric conversion, the input function is used.

20). What is the maximum length that can be assigned to the target variable by scan function?

Answer 

The maximum length is 200 characters.

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SAS Logical Interview Questions

Q21). What is the significance of TRANWRD function in SAS?

Answer 

To remove the repeated occurrence of a pattern of characters within a character string, TRANWRD function is used in SAS.

Q22). Name a few functions that are frequently used by SAS developers?

Answer 

Scan, Trim, tranwrd, Catx, Substr, Index, Find, Sum.

Q23). How will dates work in SAS data? 

Answer 

Date	SAS Date Value
January 1, 1959	-365
January 1, 1960	0
January 1, 1961	366
January 1, 2003	15706
Dates in SAS

A SAS date is a numeric value equal to the number of days since January 1, 1960. Also, there are plenty of tools that can be used to read printed data in SAS datasets.

Q24). Look at the following SAS and calculate the number of observations given in the program.

Answer to SAS Logical Interview Questions: 

Data finance; Amount=1000; Rate=.075/12; Do month=1 to 12; Earned +(amount+earned)*(rate); Output; End; Run;

Here, the total number of observations would be 12.

Q25). How will you differentiate the do-while and do until options in SAS?

Answer to SAS Logical Interview Questions:

Do While	Do Until
Do While Evaluates at the Top	Do Until Evaluates at the Bottom.
The Do While loop simply executes as long as the condition is true.	The Do Until loop keeps iterating while the condition is false and until the condition is true.
Do while Executes only if the condition is true.	Do Until Executes at Least Once.

 

Q26). How can you specify the condition within Do Loop?

Answer to SAS Logical Interview Questions: 

It can be done by doing while and do until options in SAS.

Q27). How will you check the total number of iterations given in the program?

Answer to SAS Logical Interview Questions:

data work; do i=1 to 20 until(sum>=200000); year+1; sum+2000; sum+sum*.10; end; run;

Here, the do loop will run until the sum does not become greater than or equal to 20000 or until the loop executes 10 times as per the given program.

Q28). How is a scan function defined in the SAS?

Answer

Here is the general syntax is given for the scan function in SAS –

scan(argument,n,delimiters)

Here, arguments will define the expression that you want to scan, n will specify the total number of characters to read, and delimiters will specify how characters will be enclosed in a single quotation.

Q29). Can we define the special characters as numeric data types too?

Answer 

No, it should be defined as the character data type only.

Q30). Take an example where one variable contains the numeric values only, can you still define it as a character data type too?

Answer 

Yes, it depends on how variables are used within a SAS program

Tricky SAS Interview Questions

Q31). What can be the size of the largest dataset in SAS?

Answer to Tricky SAS SQL Interview Questions: 

The length can go up to 32,767 variables for a dataset in SAS.

Q32). Do PROC REPORT’s defaults are different from PROC PRINT’s defaults or they could be the same as well?

Answer to Tricky SAS SQL Interview Questions: 

They are generally different from each other but there are certain conditions when they could be the same as well.

Q33). Give an example where the meaning of PROC REPORT’s defaults and PROC PRINT’s defaults are the same?

Answer to Tricky SAS SQL Interview Questions: 

They are the same for variables/columns in position order and rows ordered as they appear in the data set.

Q34). What is the trailing @ and @@ in SAS?

Answer to tricky SAS SQL interview questions: 

The trailing @ option is used in column pointers to hold the line. At the same time, the trailing @ @ option is used to hold the line even more strongly.

Q35). For the Proc Report, what is the meaning of group and order variables?

Answer to Tricky SAS SQL Interview Questions:  

When the variables are declared as the group variables then rows with the same values will be collapsed. At the same time, order variables are used to create summary reports and group variables are used for list reports.

Q36). How can the default statistics be defined for the Means Procedures?

Answer to Tricky SAS SQL Interview Questions:  

These are the mean, standard deviation, n count, maximum, or minimum values, etc.

Q37). How can you produce the summary reports in SAS?

Answer to Tricky SAS SQL Interview Questions:    

Use proc report and define the variable as a group variable to create the summary report.

Q38). How can decimal places be controlled for the variable when using PROC Means?

Answer to tricky SAS SQL interview questions:  

Define the MAXDEC= option, and you are done.

Q39). How will you define the Class statement in SAS?

Answer to Tricky SAS SQL Interview Questions:  

The Class Statement can be applied to any data set even if values are sorted properly or not.

Q40). How can you define the BY Statement in SAS?

Answer to Tricky SAS SQL Interview Questions:    

The BY statement is used to instruct the DATA step or procedures to process dataset observations in groups, rather than singly. For the BY Statement, values must be first sorted before you use it.

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SAS Analytics Interview Questions

Q41). How can you generate reports in Proc Means and Proc Summary?

Answer to SAS Analytics Interview Questions:

In the case of the Proc Means, reports are generated by default. On the other hand, you should use the Print option to generate a report in Proc Summary.

Q42). How can you specify the variable to be processed in the FREQ Procedure?

Answer to SAS Analytics Interview Questions:

It can be done by Table Statement.

Q43). How will you use the Proc FREQ and Proc MEANS in SAS?

Answer to SAS Analytics Interview Questions:

PROC FREQ is used for categorical variables and Proc Means is used for numeric variables in SAS.

Q44). For the Proc FREQ, how can you generate the list output for cross-tabulations?

Answer to SAS Analytics Interview Questions:

TABLES variable-1*variable-2 <*…..variable-n>/ LIST;

Q45). How can you merge or combine datasets in SAS?

Answer to SAS Analytics Interview Questions:

You can combine merge or combine datasets this way: 

data combined;

merge data1 data2;

run;

Q46). How can you define the interleaving in SAS?

Answer to SAS Analytics Interview Questions:

The job of interleaving operation is to combine independent multiple sorted data sets into a single combined dataset.

data combined;

set data1 data2;

by year;

run;

With this code, the dataset can be sorted and combined.

Q47). Which one is more suitable to combine datasets either one-to-one merge or match-merge options?

Answer to SAS Analytics Interview Questions:

One-to-one merge is a more suitable option to combine datasets in SAS.

Q48). What do you mean by the Append procedure in SAS?

Answer to SAS Analytics Interview Questions:

The APPEND procedure adds the observations from one SAS data set to the end of another SAS data set. PROC APPEND procedure does not process the observations in the first data set and adds the observations in the second data set directly to the end of the original data set.

Q49). Which procedure is used to analyze the data deeply?

Answer to SAS Analytics Interview Questions:

Well, you can use the BMDP procedure for deep data analysis.

Q50). How can you define the Proc UNIVARIATE procedure in SAS?

Answer to SAS Analytics Interview Questions:

PROC UNIVARIATE is a procedure within SAS used primarily for examining the distribution of data, including an assessment of normality and discovery of outliers.

Conclusion

This blog “SAS Interview Questions for Freshers, Intermediates, and the advanced workforce” gives you a sound idea of questions that are usually asked by interviewers and helps you in cracking the interview with confidence. This list is not enough but you should consider taking online SSIS training or Learn SAS for free by availing our self-learning courses at a huge discount with JanBask Training. 

Moreover, if you are not sure of online training classes and their benefits, register for a demo class and clear all your doubts by interacting with certified mentors during the LIVE session. On the completion of the SSIS online training, you will learn to swim in the career pool of database tools and how they can be used for robust data management. All the Best!