PAXboy
Answering your first question first…generally these days no, you don’t know exactly, but sometimes, depending on what chunk of recurrent checking training you are doing you can make a guess…for example if you have just started the Low Visibility training part of a session you know there’s a high probability there’s a rejected take-off coming up….
Other than that as has been said given the requirement for mandatory items to be got through sim time is tight/precious…
As a result you’re probably you’ll never get a standard start up, departure and be allowed to get all the way up to 30,000 feet plus before the wings start falling off
You’ll either get ( thinking Long Haul sims ) a scenario where the failures are chucked in on a short sector, e.g. Bahrain/Doha or Heathrow to Manchester…that would be the Line Orientated Evaluation that zero/zero mentions…..or you (virtually) go off from London heading for the Middle East but the problems start immediately the gear is up, if not before…and you end up back in London having never got East of Dover….
If an exercise needs to be commenced at cruising level (e.g. depressurization and rapid descent..or maybe a problem that starts in the cruise such as a fuel leak) you’ll be fast forwarded to start that chunk of the lesson up there, so to speak…