Most of the time for grad admissions they use the subject GREs and almost entirely ignore the basic ones (though they require you take them). Math PhD programs

Most of the time for grad admissions they use the subject GREs and almost entirely ignore the basic ones (though they require you take them). Math PhD programs don't even care about any part of the basic GRE, just the subject test, which is used exactly how the article describes. I assume in humanities programs they give weight to the verbal/writing parts of the GRE just as a pre-filter before they examine candidates. But the quant part of the GRE is so basic (high school level, no calculus) that the difference between missing a single problem is the difference between 100 percentile and like 75 since almost everyone who is trying does unbelievably well.