gen awareness marks are added in total or they are considered during gd pi?

GK scores are not under consideration while calculating the percentile so if you have less time or time management issues you can focus on other sections.
Let me tell you other side-  if you do the GK section then you can get importance at the next stage that is GD-PI. So you should not focus on avoiding GK questions rather focus on maximum questions to fetch a good percentile.

Good Luck.