What is the converse of the conditional statement P -> Q?

• A. Not P -> Not Q
• B. P -> Q
• C. Q -> P
• D. Not Q -> Not P

Answer: (C)

The thing being tested is how to form the converse of a conditional statement. A conditional P -> Q reads as “if P, then Q.” To get the converse, you swap the parts P and Q, giving Q -> P, which reads “if Q, then P.” That is why the correct choice says “If Q, then P.”

Think about an example: P = “it is raining,” Q = “the street is wet.” The original says if it is raining, the street is wet. The converse would be if the street is wet, it is raining. That might not be true (someone could have watered the street), illustrating why the converse isn’t automatically true just because the original is.

For context, the inverse would be Not P -> Not Q (if it is not raining, the street isn’t wet), and the contrapositive is Not Q -> Not P (if the street isn’t wet, then it isn’t raining), which is logically equivalent to the original.