The sim is passable, but it is hard. The speed, turbine stuff, and full motion aspect are not hard alone, but put together with the stress of an interview, an unfamiliar crew partner, no time to become familiar with the aircraft, and a sim instructor acting like the meanest controller ever, then it is hard.
For me the hardest part was leveling off at 2,000. 2,000 feet goes by very quick after you get over the shock of the sim moving and the feeling of a new aircraft. From that point on, just focus on what you need to do. Keep the sim slow (I cruised at about 170) and make sure you understand where you are in relation to the VOR so that when they give you the hold you don't have to waste time finding out where you are. You have about 2.5 to 3 miles to figure out the hold entry while you are turning towards the VOR, so prepare yourself for it. After that, you get put on a base for an ILS. They had me intercept the GS at 3,000, so I had plenty of time to get the aircraft established.
Biggest errors were not entering the hold correctly and flying the approach too fast. Once they set you up for a base, get the airspeed below 160 right away. The flap speed is around 154, and many people put the flaps in too fast (my sim partner was one, but his ILS was great, so they let it pass). Use the time before GS intercept to get your wind correction and try to get the power set correctly before you start going down. They hold you to ATP standards, but they do give you a bit of a learning curve. I busted my initial altitude by 150 feet and got blasted by the instructor right away, but after I got a feel for how the aircraft responded to power, I just focused on those instruments and hung on. They want people they can train easily, and they can afford to do so in this market. I am surprised most places don’t do such a hard sim. If I was going to hire a pilot I didn’t know personally to fly a large aircraft like the Q400, I would want to make sure they could adapt to a new aircraft quickly before I invested thousands in their training.
Also, they defiantly do not make up their mind before you get in the sim. The interview, logbook review, written test, and sim are all done by separate people in a random order. The person in charge of each section does not have time to ask their coworkers what they think of you or have time to read previous comments. The sim instructor just made sure the folder had my name on it and cleared me to takeoff. After, he put a check mark in his area and passed it along to the next person.