Turn Right,
The purpose of sims is not so much as real world but teaching procedures one step at a time. It is impossible to insert real world because the Simulators can mimic wind, icing turbelence, or lousy climb rates.
At FWA we have our simulations broken down into stages.
1. Departures (with a few overflights)
2. Arrivals (with a few overflights and departures)
3. Satelite Arrivals (with a few ops at primary airport)
4. Satelite Departures (with a few mixed operations)
5. Military formations, flight break ups, etc.
6. VFR aircraft with some IFR's
7. Everything mixed together
We don't have the simulator as pass/fail (though after some of our more recent trainees I wish we did). We will run some of the problems multiple times until the trainee learns the right way.
We have subsequent Stages of simulations with additional complexity but regretfully not all supes require trainees to run them.
Mike