> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.voxworks.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Rating

> The Rating question type: a scale whose points are its answer options. How it relates to Single choice, how to author word and number scales, when to use Number or Battery instead, and what is recorded.

## What it's for

A **Rating** question asks the respondent to place themselves on a scale — *"very satisfied"* to *"very dissatisfied"*, *"strongly agree"* to *"strongly disagree"*, or 1 to 5.

On the phone, a rating is asked exactly like a [Single choice](/surveys/question-types/single-choice) question: the **scale points are the answer options**, the interviewer reads them after the prompt, and the respondent picks one. Every setting, every piece of call behaviour and every recorded variable is the same as Single choice. The differences are in how you author the scale and how numeric answers are reported.

***

## Rating or Single choice?

| Use                                               | When                                                                                                                                                                                                                           |
| ------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Rating**                                        | The answers form an ordered scale, and you want the question reported as a scale.                                                                                                                                              |
| **Single choice**                                 | The answers are categories with no order.                                                                                                                                                                                      |
| [Battery (grid)](/surveys/question-types/battery) | Several items rated one after another on the same scale — turn **Battery** on for a Rating question.                                                                                                                           |
| [Number](/surveys/question-types/number)          | A 0–10 score (such as likelihood to recommend). Eleven points is too many to read out, and a Rating question holds at most ten options. Use a Number question with a **Range** of 0 to 10 and explain the scale in the prompt. |

***

## Settings

A Rating question has the same settings as Single choice — see [Single choice](/surveys/question-types/single-choice#settings) for each one:

| Setting                                                                                                                                                                                      | Default                        |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ |
| **Answer mode** (**Read out** / **Unprompted**)                                                                                                                                              | **Read out**                   |
| **Battery**                                                                                                                                                                                  | Off                            |
| **Shuffle answer order**                                                                                                                                                                     | Off                            |
| **Options lead-in**                                                                                                                                                                          | *"The options are:"*           |
| **Answer options** — the scale points, each with a key, **Read out** / **Volunteered only**, **Keep position**, and **Voice** (**Accept**, **Often heard as**, **Reject**, **Recode value**) | **Yes**, **No** (replace them) |
| **Read every answer back**                                                                                                                                                                   | Off                            |
| **Screen out if the question cannot be run**                                                                                                                                                 | Off                            |

Plus the shared settings in [Question settings](/surveys/question-settings).

<Warning>Leave **Shuffle answer order** off on a scale. A shuffled scale is confusing to hear and hard to answer.</Warning>

***

## Authoring the scale

**Word scales.** Enter each point as an option, in order: *Very satisfied*, *Satisfied*, *Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied*, *Dissatisfied*, *Very dissatisfied*. Use **Accept** for the everyday ways people say each point — *pretty happy* for *Satisfied*, *not fussed either way* for the midpoint.

**Number scales.** Enter the points as numbers — *1*, *2*, *3*, *4*, *5* — and say what the ends mean in the prompt: *"On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is very poor and 5 is excellent, how would you rate …?"* Add **Accept** lines for number words where it helps (*five out of five*, *top marks*).

**Don't know and refused.** Add *Don't know* and *Prefer not to say* as **Volunteered only** options so they're recorded as answers rather than skipped — they're not read out as part of the scale.

**Lead-in.** A lead-in such as *"Would you say:"* makes a word scale sound natural. On a number scale described in the prompt, you may prefer *"Is it:"* or a short *"From 1 to 5:"*.

**Context.** Tell the matcher how to treat in-between answers in **Context for the matcher** — for example *"'Somewhere between satisfied and very satisfied' is Satisfied; 'three and a half' is 3."*

***

## What the respondent hears

Exactly as for Single choice: the prompt, the lead-in and the scale; the scale again on request without using an attempt; a "did you say…?" check on a possible mishearing; one nudge on "don't know" and on a refusal; and a skip when the attempts run out. See [Single choice → What the respondent hears](/surveys/question-types/single-choice#what-the-respondent-hears).

A scale point that is a number is read back as digits — *"Did you say 4?"*

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## What is recorded

| Variable                                 | Type | Example            | Notes                                                                     |
| ---------------------------------------- | ---- | ------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `{{survey.<key>.result}}`                | text | `4` or `Satisfied` | The chosen scale point's text. Empty when skipped.                        |
| `{{survey.<key>.status}}`                | text | `captured`         | `captured`, `skipped`, `invalid`, `abandoned`, or empty if never reached. |
| `{{survey.<key>.termination_requested}}` | text | `false`            | `true` when this answer screened the respondent out.                      |

In Results and the CSV export, a scale point written as a number (such as `4`) is stored as a number, so it can be averaged when you analyse the export. A word scale point is stored as text. See [Results](/surveys/results) and [Responses and export](/surveys/responses-and-export).

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## Next Steps

* [Single choice](/surveys/question-types/single-choice) — every setting in detail.
* [Battery (grid)](/surveys/question-types/battery) — several items on one scale.
* [Number](/surveys/question-types/number) — for 0–10 scores.