SAS Cheat Sheet 2026

The 30 highest-yield SAS facts, distilled from real exam questions. Print it, save it as a PDF, or study it here — free, no sign-up.

1. What quality assurance measure supports professional standards and ethics? → Regular self-assessment, peer review, and adherence to established standards
2. How can data inconsistencies affect the statistical analysis process? → They can lead to errors and misinterpretations of results
3. How does missing data impact statistical analysis? → It can skew results and lead to inaccurate conclusions
4. Which of the following is an example of a validation technique in software development? → User acceptance testing (UAT)
5. What is the foundational principle of professional standards and ethics in the Certified Statistical Analysis System Specialist field? → Maintaining competence, integrity, and service to stakeholders
6. In the PROC TABULATE TABLE statement, which operator nests one variable or statistic within another? → Asterisk (*)
7. What does the 'INFILE' statement do in SAS? → It identifies the external file to read data from.
8. The BREAK statement in PROC REPORT with the SUMMARIZE option inserts a row that: → Contains summary statistics for the observations in each report group
9. Why is data normalization important in statistical analysis? → It standardizes data for meaningful comparisons
10. What is the primary goal of quality assurance (QA)? → To ensure the product meets quality standards during the production process
11. What is the foundational principle of industry best practices in the Certified Statistical Analysis System Specialist field? → Maintaining competence, integrity, and service to stakeholders
12. What quality assurance measure supports industry best practices? → Regular self-assessment, peer review, and adherence to established standards
13. How should challenges in safety and compliance be addressed? → Apply systematic problem-solving, seek expert guidance when needed, and document decisions
14. In the PROC TABULATE TABLE statement, which operator separates the row expression from the column expression? → Comma (,)
15. Which ODS destination produces Rich Text Format output that can be opened and edited in Microsoft Word? → ODS RTF
16. In PROC REPORT, a spanning header over multiple adjacent columns is created by: → Enclosing column names in parentheses with a label in the COLUMN statement
17. What is the primary objective of data management in statistical analysis? → To ensure data integrity and accuracy
18. What does 'root cause analysis' aim to identify in a quality issue? → The underlying cause of the problem, allowing for permanent solutions.
19. In PROC REPORT, the DEFINE statement with the GROUP usage creates output where: → Observations with the same value are consolidated into one row
20. What quality assurance measure supports assessment and evaluation? → Regular self-assessment, peer review, and adherence to established standards
21. What quality assurance measure supports continuing education requirements? → Regular self-assessment, peer review, and adherence to established standards
22. What is the purpose of a 'DATA' step in SAS? → To create datasets and manipulate data.
23. What quality assurance measure supports applied methods and techniques? → Regular self-assessment, peer review, and adherence to established standards
24. In PROC TABULATE, the statistic keyword N represents: → The count of non-missing observations for a variable
25. What is the purpose of a hypothesis test in statistical analysis? → To determine whether there is enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis
26. What role does data cleaning play in the data analysis process? → It makes data easier to interpret
27. What is the primary focus of 'total quality management' (TQM)? → Ensuring all employees are involved in process improvement and customer satisfaction.
28. Which tool is commonly used in data preparation for statistical analysis? → Database management systems like SQL
29. Which statistical technique is used for predicting a continuous outcome based on one or more predictor variables? → Linear regression
30. What ethical standard governs communication and documentation practice? → Adherence to the profession's code of ethics and applicable laws and regulations