I would love to know more about the simulator test from you; I have no flying experience so it would something hard to do.
Go do a TIF at a flying school anywhere nearby, they should explain the basics and give you an idea of how fixed wing planes fly (tip, they all fly the same, just different systems and engines, and of course they get bigger and heavier like a truck vs a car, that is, a truck doesn't drive any differently to a car, but you have to allow more for it's size and weight). As for the simulator, most airlines use the sim check to assess how you adapt to something new, how much you progress through the session, are you trainable, do you have the experience as advertised in your resume (for experienced applicants). It is not assessing how well you can fly an aircraft, as obviously you have very little experience doing this, but if you improve by the end of the session you have done well. Although like I said in the first part, do a trial flight, one, to make sure you really want to be a pilot and two, to get some idea of how things work. What a pilot would do in preparation for a sim ride is probably look for as much info on the type you are going to use, and have a brisk read through the manual. Be careful of diving too far into operating procedures as even flying a SAAB there are different operating procedures depending on which airline, so watching a US airline video on how they do it is not how it's done here in Australia.