We establish sufficient conditions for obtaining a strong converse inequality of type B in terms of a unified K-functional for a sequence of linear positive operators (L n ) n 1 , L n :This K-functional, introduced by Guo et al. (see, e.g., [S. Guo, Q. Qi, Strong converse inequalities for Baskakov operators, J. Approx. Theory 124 (2003) 219-231]), will be considered for more general weight functions. As applications we investigate the situation for Baskakov type operators and Szász-Mirakjan type operators. 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.