Four different beverages are sold at a fast-food restaurant: soft drinks, tea, coffee, and bottled water. Explain why the type of beverage sold is an example of a categorical variable.
To explain:whether the beverages are an example of a categorical variable or not.
Hence, it is a categorical variable.
Categorical variable: It refers to those variables which cannot be measured numerically or where arithmetic operation is not applicable that is nominal, ordinal etc.
Categorical variable is also known as qualitative variable.
Here. Beverages is qualitative variable since it shows the quality or some sort of attribute (that is, hot, cool etc) of the beverage moreover it cannot be measured numerically since it is the name of the beverages therefore it is an example of categorical variable.
Further, all beverages can be categorized as an ordinal variable.
Hence, all would be lies in the category of ordinal data since it can be ordered or rank according to taste and preference.