[armorsaint]

 I am trying to help a friend solve this problem and it has us both lost. Any help would be much appreciated.

[Babcock_Hall]

The first thing that I would do is to calculate the degrees of unsaturation.  With respect to the most downfield peak in the C-13 spectrum, carbonyl groups that are part of ketones give a signal that is quite different from a carbonyl that is part of an amide.