Manhattan SC book 5th edition

[eybrj2]

On page 230,

17. Dr. King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" is a condemnation of a racial injustice and a call for onoviolent resistance to that injustice.

The verb is equates the two parallel halves of this sentence, both of which are action noun phrases. In order to maximize parallelism between the latter half of the sentence and the first half, we prefer simple, common action nouns to gerunds.

How can the fist half, Dr.King "letter from a Birmingham Jail", be considered an anction noun phrase?

Also, can't action nouns be parallel to complex gerund, which is in the original question, a condemning and a calling ?
Why action nouns are preferrable in this case?
Is it because if an appropriate noun for a particular verb already exists in English, then avoid creating a complex gerund phrase ?

On page 226,

should not change "are suspicious of" to the verb "suspect" because "consumer suspect such offers" is unidiomatic.

I looked up both words, suspicious and suspect, in dictionary, but they have similar meaning.
So when should we use "are suspicious of " and when should we use "suspect"?
How can we differentiate those two words in terms od usage?

[jlucero]

p230-

I see your point here and think the wording in the explanation is a bit misleading because they use the word "halves" in two different instances:

Two parallel halves of this sentence= condemning and calling (both action noun phrases)

First and latter halves = Letter and X/Y

And yes, your explanation is dead-on, if we have simple action nouns that we can use, we prefer those to clunkier complex gerund phrases.

p226-

First off, suspicious (adj) and suspect (verb) are different parts of speech. This causes the sentence to mean two very different things. Consumers are suspicious (Suspicious consumers) vs Consumers suspect offers (Consumers blame offers for something).

Secondly, they are close in meaning, but the difference in meaning is important to point out:

I am suspicious of John. I think John might be up to something.

I suspect John (did something). I think John did something.

Subtle, but important changes. And again, notice how the rest of the sentence is worded because the part of speech is different.

[vijayjakhotia]

One confusion i have here is:- How can Letter be parallel to a Condemnation/ a call? I think Dr.King's Letter is a concrete noun and we have 'is' which is a linking verb and hence we should maintain Parallelism. I don't see the parallelism maintained in this sentence.

An example given in MGMAT SC:- The bouquet of flowers was a gift of love.

[tim]

you need to phrase your question differently. remember, your job is not to identify correct parallelism, but rather to find errors. do you think there is an error here? if so, please point out the error and quote the rule (including page number from our strategy guide) that makes it an error. if there is no clear error, you should hang onto this answer choice for now. this is the general strategy you should employ for SC by the way - NEVER get rid of an answer choice unless (1) you are SURE it is an error because you have a specific rule that applies to the situation or (2) you are willing to get the question wrong..