A measurement instrument in which, when the initially loaded instrument is partly unloaded in such a fashion that the part load falls in a lower load range with a finer display-scale interval, the instrument continues to use the scale for the larger load until the load is removed completely. When the load is removed completely, however, the display reads "zero" as soon as the result R(m) at calculation stage m satisfies the condition .vertline.R(m).vertline..ltoreq.d.sub.jmax /2 (zero region) where d.sub.jmax is the largest display-scale interval. The next-finer display-scale interval is selected if the difference d.sub.s between two successive results determined at a particular time-interval satisfies the condition d.sub.j .ltoreq.d.sub.2 /10. A zero store is updated to include each result in the zero region.