Why?

The purpose of GRE : identify potential candidates for graduate research. This begs the question, what does writing a impactful and coveted PhD thesis involve. Which leads universities to ask the question what should be the prerequisites for a graduate applicant. By a normal logical thought process, these should be qualities that are either innate, or cannot be learnt during the time interval when candidate does graduate research. These constraints themselves restrict the tested qualities (in the GRE) since doing a graduate research allows for learning and developing in a many different directions.

So what are the qualities/attitudes that lead to a prestigious PhD theses? First and foremost, the basic requirement that is reflected in the GRE test structure is a massive and prodigious vocabulary. This could have passed for a necessary requirement two/three decades earlier, when fast and easy access to online dictionaries and context information was not available while reading research papers or listening to conferences or even discussing a topic with a colleague. Today, technology has advanced to a level where an impressive vocabulary has become an extraneous skill for an impressive theses, where people with frugal or even a minimal knowledge of the working language (here English) can produce awe-inspiring works and answer profound questions in any field.

The second requirement that is apparent to me while preparing for the GRE is the criteria of familiarity/acquaintance with english/american culture. I would go so far as to say that the knowledge and familiarity of english/american culture required should be in accordance with a particular narrow world view. Consider for example the reading comprehension questions. A known and popular caveat while solving these problems is that the test-taker should never choose an extreme derivation of a theory suggested by the passage. To this I have to say that, the apparent constituents of an extreme reaction/response depend greatly upon the test-takers cultural background and many other things that should not ideally affect their scores. For example, in a recent passage that I read, the passage insinuates that political leaders frequently indulge in corrupt and immoral practices. Now, for an Indian to suggest that this implies that all politicians are corrupt/immoral would not be an extreme statement. So, this requirement is also not appropriate and is unable to identify potential candidates for graduate study. Also, a graduate thesis involves suggesting and testing theories which extend the existing human knowledge. How likely is a person, who always conforms to the average/normal explanation of phenomenon, to propose a ground-breaking theory?

There can be given many examples of questions that have appeared in the official GRE test that promote a particular interpretation of the given data. The purpose of the GRE is to identify people who can propose and prove unprecedented theories. How would a person that has  subscribed to a particular way of viewing the world, propose unprecedented and revolutionary ideas?

As for the analytical writing and the mathematical portion of the test, I think that these are necessary and inexpedient part of the test. But I can speak for a large number of people when I say that the mathematical portion of the test is irrelevant because almost everybody scores perfectly in these tests. For, the analytical part, even if you do not score a high score in this portion, it does not mean that you cannot think or present great ideas.

Thus, I conclude that requiring applicants to successfully  take the GRE test, defeats the very purpose  of educational institutions which  is to select candidates with a potential for graduate research. Hence, this unnecessary and expensive procedure should be done away with and the educators of today should embrace the new advanced society where everyone has the potential to succeed. (well, almost everyone)