Am I the only one who thinks the GRE is absurd?

You are not alone, and you're not wrong. There is a real case to be made that any multiple-choice exam, as a measure of the full complexity of what it means to be a capable human, is going to fall short. The GRE focuses primarily on verbal reasoning and quantitative reasoning, as if those were the only ways to be intelligent. That's an extremely old-fashioned view of intelligence and competence, when in fact there are many known kinds of intelligence: social, emotional, musical, creative, artistic, and others far beyond just math and language.

So yes, the fundamental endeavor of the GRE is, in a sense, an absurd one. The reason it persists, and the reason standardized tests still play a large role, is that it has been shown to have some predictive ability toward success within and after graduate programs. That doesn't mean it's perfect. It's nowhere near perfect. It misjudges people all the time and probably leads to poor decisions in both directions, conferring more competence than is deserved on some and less on others.

Our stance at TestCrackers is not that this test is a good thing or a legitimate thing, but that it is a real barrier toward entering the programs you want to attend. Our hope is that the experience we have helping people understand the rules of the game, and the skills that matter, allows them to dramatically improve their performance on it. That's all we intend, and that's all we do here. We encourage you to do the same.

That said, there are programs that feel the same way you do and are either test-optional or do not use test scores at all. We encourage you to seek out those programs, not only if the exam is challenging for you, but also if you want to be surrounded by like-minded people who share your beliefs about standardized testing.