Hey livitup_bailey -
You put forward a great question and one that a lot of people preparing for the GMAT ask themselves, especially as it comes down to "crunch time." I tend to agree with InkyBinky that you should exhaust the practice tests you have at your disposal, though those remaining practice questions will come in handy for any remaining troublesome spots you need to brush up on. A few tips I always relay to my students regarding how to best use those practice tests:
1) Make it all about take-away for test day. My best advice for maximizing your take-away with each practice test is to be incredibly analytical. It is easy for students to fall into the trap of reviewing only the questions they answer incorrectly. That is how most of us were trained through out our schooling - correct your wrong answers and move on. But let's consider that approach for the GMAT. Even the best test-takers and highest-scoring students get some questions right because they make a solid, educated guess between two remaining answers OR they get questions correct but spent 3 minutes on the problem when it could have been answered in significantly less time. As my GMAT date approached, I was spending nearly as much time reviewing my practice tests as I was taking them. A systematic approach is to create a simple grid for the 41 verbal and 37 quant questions to make a quick note of how you felt about the answer you choose: confident, so-so, or worried. Use that as a guide to review each and every question. Ask yourself questions like "Did I get this right because I knew the answer or because I made a lucky guess between two remaining choices? How could I have been certain? What was I missing? Could I have saved time somewhere?" For questions you answered incorrectly, use the solution as a starting point and see if you can resolve the problem correctly. If not, review the solution explanation and make note of any formulas, concepts, etc. tested in that problem that you know now you need to review - this is where your Official Guide questions will come in handy.
2) Do your best to mimic test conditions. Think about all of the controlled conditions of the testing center. Get used to note taking and performing calculations with a wet-erase marker (you don't want test day to be the day you learn how easy those pens smudge!). Two or three times, wake up and take the test at the same time you'll be taking the official exam. I even went so far as to wake up and go to a new location (a friend's office and the library) on the two Saturday's preceding my test. I found that this helped minimize my test-day anxiety since by test-day, I was more or less used to the whole process.
3) Try not to ignore the AWA. No, it doesn't factor into your 800 score and no, a really great AWA score isn't going to do much to help your chances at your dream school. However, a bad AWA score can hurt your chances. If you are still not convinced you need to practice the AWA, consider that if you don't practice a fair amount of "full-length" - AWA included - practice tests than you are putting yourself at a serious disadvantage come test day. As all of your preparation has likely shown, this exam isn't simply a test of content or reasoning. It challenges your mental stamina. If you've never completed the hour of writing before the two 75-minute sections, then you won't have a solid grasp on how you'll hold up test day.
Hope this helps answer your questions. Best of luck in your final days of preparation!
