Brian1, while I agree that there is limited evidence to support the GRE's use as a predictive measure of academic success, that hardly makes the exam useless or idiotic. The exam is clearly measuring something, otherwise the results of the exam would be so random as to be useless or idiotic. What has been seen is that GRE scores are typically reliable in test-retest results, which suggests that the exam is measuring something and that something may or may not be useless or idiotic. I struggled with the GRE, I took practice test after practice test. I worked until I was fairly confident that I was able to take the test and get the result I wanted (1200 or better).
There appear to be two rate limiting factors on the GRE for most people (although I might be wrong in this assumption, feel free to correct me), the first factor is fluid intelligence (or some reasonable proxy for fluid intelligence) and the second is knowledge. Without both or either of these things, one would expect performance to suffer considerably, the brightest person on earth without the requisite fund of knowledge tested on the GRE will likely do poorly, just as the person with the most crystallized knowledge imaginable attempting to take the GRE would struggle without the fluid intelligence to arrive at the correct answer. Lack both fluid intelligence and an adequate fund of knowledge and performance will be very poor.
As a result, the GRE and most other standardized test appear on the surface to be "stupid" and "useless" because they may not be measuring something important for graduate education, on the other hand, with a majority of applicants it may very well be measuring something important and useful. If you get rid of the GRE for comparing the majority of applicants, what would you replace it with?
How else do you compare students from different institutions, backgrounds, and even degree programs? Standardized testing puts everyone up against the same criteria and under the same conditions. Maybe the GRE is not the proper standardized test in which applicants from different backgrounds can be evaluated for graduate education in psychology, but what alternative would you suggest?
The use of the GRE as a general screener may be an inappropriate way of using this assessment tool, but using the GRE to objectively differentiate between students competing for limited positions could be appropriate. I would argue how the GRE is used is even more important than the test used to evaluate potential students.
I hope you get the score you want/need and you can move forward.
M