to the SAS windowing environment. Otherwise, the exercise can be considered environment-independent. Path references in this book are, however, specific to Microsoft Windows, and may need to be adjusted for other environments such as UNIX, Linux, or z/OS. (SAS University Edition runs in a Linux environment even if you are using a Windows PC.)
For Instructors Instructors may obtain a complete solutions manual by completing the form found at the “Instructors Solutions” link on the web pages for any of the authors at support.sas.com/publishing/authors, and providing the appropriate credentials. The solutions given for the programming exercises are not the only ones possible. Many of the exercises can be solved in multiple ways. Instructors may choose to share a snippet of output or a graph if they think their students need a little extra help to complete an exercise. The section references that accompany the instructors’ solutions refer to the sections in The Little SAS Book, Sixth Edition where the material is covered. These references are listed only for the corresponding chapter of the exercise even though the answer may use subject matter from a previous chapter.
We encourage instructors to add their own follow-up questions to any of the exercises for class assignments. In Chapter 9, “Using Basic Statistical Procedures,” we have supplied many extra variables in the data sets so that instructors can append additional questions according to the content covered in their course.
For the projects in the final chapter, instructors may choose to download and distribute the data for the class to use. Instructors may clean the data for the class as they see fit, or leave the data manipulation to the students instead.
Additional Help Although this book illustrates many programming tasks and analyses regularly performed in businesses across industries, questions specific to your aims and issues may arise. To fully support you, SAS Institute and SAS Press offer you the following resources:
• For questions about topics covered in this book, contact the authors through SAS Press at [email protected].
• For questions about topics in or beyond the scope of this book, post queries to the relevant SAS Support Communities at communities.sas.com.
• To search the SAS user Knowledge Base or contact SAS Customer Support you can visit support.sas.com.
About The Authors
Rebecca A. Ottesen first learned SAS as a student at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where she now teaches for the Statistics Department. As a biostatistician for the City of Hope, Rebecca uses every opportunity to incorporate her research and programming experience into the coursework for her Cal Poly students.
Lora D. Delwiche enjoys teaching people about SAS software and likes solving challenging problems using SAS. She has spent most of her career at the University of California, Davis, using SAS in support of teaching and research.
Susan J. Slaughter discovered SAS software in graduate school at North Carolina State University. Since then, she has used SAS in a variety of business and academic settings managing large databases, teaching SAS software classes, and helping other SAS programmers. She now works as a consultant through her company, Avocet Solutions.
Learn more about these authors by visiting their author pages, where you can download free book excerpts, access example data, read the latest reviews, get updates, and more:
support.sas.com/ottesen support.sas.com/delwiche support.sas.com/slaughter
Acknowledgments
1. Which of the following is true about the technical reviewers, editors, designer, technical publishing specialist, and marketing specialist for this book?
a. They are smart
b. They are hard-working
c. They are wonderful
d. All of the above
The correct answer is D! We are grateful to have had the support of so many insightful people who contributed to this book. Our reviewers (Marie Boman-Davis, Hunter Glanz, Lynette Harris, Laura Kapitula, Isabel Litton, Sanjay Matange, Lelia McConnell, Sandy Owens, and Christine Wells) provided us with invaluable feedback and perspective that helped us shape this book so that it will develop important skills for beginning programmers. Robert Harris, our cover designer, made all of our cover ideas come to life. Our technical publishing specialist, Denise Jones, ensured that the final version of the book looked great. To Sian Roberts, our marketing specialist, thank you for helping to promote our book and getting the word out. We offer a special thank you to Catherine Connolly, our developmental editor and copyeditor, for hanging in there and standing by our side every step of the way. And, finally, this book would also not have been possible without the support of our families, friends, loyal readers, and students (you know who you are), thank you.
Chapter 1
Getting Started Using SAS Software
Multiple Choice
1. Which of the following is not a comment in SAS?
a. /* I am not a comment */
b. * I am not a comment ;
c. /* * I am not a comment; */
d. All of the above are valid comments
2. What other term is appropriate for referring to a SAS data set?
a. A column
b. A row
c. A table
d. None of the above
3. Which of the following is a valid variable name when using the VALIDVARNAME=V7 option?
a. AbCdEfGhIjKlMnOpQrStUvWxYz
b. %Change
c. Debt-Ratio
d. 1stProcedure
4.
