The bottom line is that if you don't know how to fly a procedure on a sim, don't bother trying to do it in a real plane. Instructors may not spell it out in quite that way but they have to make a living...
My instructor told me to get RANT, and expected me to have flown each lesson using RANT before getting in the aircraft.
Which of course you want to do with today's wind, so no IMCr lessons should be booked for 9am.
I agree that it's a total waste of money trying to understand an NDB approach, or trying to get the picture of where you are and where you're heading and which way you're going to turn next, or whatever, in an aircraft.