Question
Consider the following statements:
P: Good mobile phones are not cheap
Q: Cheap mobile phones are not good
L: P implies Q
M: Q implies P
N: P is equivalent to Q
Which one of the following about L, M, and N is CORRECT?
Official answer and solution
- Official answer
- D
- From
- Official GATE 2014 answer key
Solution
Formalize the statements into predicate logic and test for logical equivalence and mutual implication.
-
Let the domain be mobile phones. Define predicates:
- : is a good mobile phone.
- : is a cheap mobile phone.
-
Formalize statement :
"Good mobile phones are not cheap": -
Formalize statement :
"Cheap mobile phones are not good": -
Recall that the contrapositive of an implication is , and any implication is logically equivalent to its contrapositive.
The contrapositive of is:Hence, statement is logically equivalent to statement ().
-
Since :
- is TRUE (statement ).
- is TRUE (statement ).
- is TRUE (statement ).
Therefore, , , and are all TRUE (option D).
D
Believing that Q is the inverse or converse of P rather than recognizing that Q is precisely the contrapositive of P.
The answer is the one in the official GATE answer key. The solution is this site's own explanation.
Source
- Paper
- GATE 2014 Computer Science and Information Technology (CS) Session 3
- Question
- 11 of 65, printed as CS Q.1
- Section
- Computer Science and Information Technology
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