Which of the following is an example of an ordinal data scale?

• A. Customer satisfaction rating (ordinal)
• B. Color categories
• C. Temperature in Celsius
• D. Weight

Answer: (A)

An ordinal data scale uses categories that are ordered to show rank, but the intervals between the categories aren’t assumed to be equal. A customer satisfaction rating fits this idea because it places responses on a natural order—from less satisfied to more satisfied—so you can compare which ratings are higher, but you can’t assume the exact difference in satisfaction between adjacent levels.

Color categories, while useful, are typically nominal data: they represent different categories with no inherent order (red, blue, green, etc.) unless you explicitly define a ranking between colors. Temperature in Celsius has ordered, equally spaced values, but the zero point isn’t a true absence of temperature, which makes it interval data rather than ordinal. Weight has a true zero and proportional differences, making it a ratio scale. These distinctions matter because different data scales support different kinds of analysis and arithmetic.