Надо было так писать )

At first I was going to take this question at face value and write a lengthy eulogy praising friendship, kindness, and the whole package normally associated with family values or pink ponies. However this is a rather advanced exam, and it's just plain unrealistic for such a trivial topic to appear in a test which is presumably supposed to evaluate both our mastery of the English language and our ability to form coherent thoughts and defend a point in an argument. So I started looking for a catch and found it, fiendishly disguised in plain sight.

The catch is obviously hidden in the wording. We're not asked to argue that friendship is good, neither are we expected to share our personal experience. Instead of that, the abstract concept of friendship is presented as a "gift", a word that, as any student should know, means a physical token of gratitude or good will. Now, one could argue that the word "gift" is also frequently used as a metaphor, as in "that person is gifted", but this explanation is easily debunked. This metaphorical usage of the word is clearly derived from Christianity where any personal trait or talent may be viewed as a very tangible result of God's actions. Thus a talent is literally a "token of good will", whereas a talented person is that gift's recipient.

However, the question in question (pun intended) is clearly written from a non-Christian perpective, because according to their mindset nothing short of the prospect of Salvation can be considered "the greatest" gift. Calling anything as mundane as friendship "the greatest gift" would be outright blasphemy. Therefore, the gift is not a metaphor. And that's where a shocking realisation awaits us, and the horrible truth behind this seemingly innocent question begins to unravel.

If we are to treat friendship as a physical item which can be given to a person as a token of gratitude or good will (and which, may I add, definitely has a price like all physical things), this means we're entering into the uncanny realm of nepotism. The author of this question invites us to ruminate on the meaning of such phrases as "friends in high places", gently making us lean towards the conclusion that having connections or maybe even buying friendship is the way to go in modern society.

Bravo, good Sir or Madam, you almost had me fooled. I fully expect to see numerous naive essays defending corruption, albeit written with good intent.