How many tables are generated when the following SAS program is submitted: PROC FREQ DATA=work.schools; RUN;?

The correct answer indicates that four tables are generated, each corresponding to a separate variable in the dataset. When the PROC FREQ procedure is executed without specifying any additional parameters, SAS automatically calculates frequency distributions for all the variables present in the dataset.

In a typical scenario, PROC FREQ creates a frequency table for each categorical variable within the dataset being analyzed. If there are character variables and numeric variables, PROC FREQ will generate one frequency table for each of the categorical variables it encounters.

Assuming there are four categorical variables in the "work.schools" dataset, the procedure would create one table per variable, resulting in a total of four tables. This process allows users to easily examine how many times each level of each categorical variable appears in the dataset, thus providing necessary insights into the distribution of those variables.

The other potential answers do not align with how PROC FREQ operates in SAS. For example, if no tables are created, it would imply that there are no variables to analyze, which is not the case here if we assume the dataset contains relevant variables. Similarly, the answer suggesting a single table or a specific number of single-variant tables fails to account for the nature of frequency tables generated by PROC FREQ across multiple categorical variables