Weird Unnecessary Words of Standardized Testing

This is the title neatly written on the top part of my brother's A4 sheet of words to learn for his GRE exam for entry into Masters in the good ol' US of A. I personally think the verbal portion of the test is flawed (this is my own personal view, and I am not setting out to discredit the GREs) as a great majority of the words tested are completely random and its a case of either you know it or don't.

Ok an example would be the word Maladroit. One can possibly deduce the meaning of the word if one knew the meaning of the word adroit. According to dictionary.com:

Adroit:
1. Dexterous; deft.
2. Skillful and adept under pressing conditions

So, logically, MALadroit would possibly mean lacking or devoid of adroitness. Personally I feel a word like that would test vocabulary as well as verbal logic, something that would perhaps give examinees a fighting chance.

Now, take the word Martinet, which loosely means:
1. Disciplinarian
2. Strict adherance

According to dictionary.com Martinet was named after General Jean Martinet, the French inventor of a system of drill, who, according to Joshua, was known to be a strict disciplinarian. How far fetched is that? I mean, its virtually impossible to make some sort of logical verbal deduction of the word.

PS: My favourite word from his list is FETID, which means: A heavy offensive smell. Wah Lau! That Belachan Si Beh Fetid!