How to get the most from VFR XC's for IFR requirements?

gregg wrote:

Practice holding heading and altitude exactly. See if you can go 10
minutes without deviating 5 degrees in heading or 50 feet in altitude.
Practice rolling out of turns exactly on your target heading, and
stopping climbs and descents exactly on your target altitude.
Practice making turns at exactly standard rate.

Good ideas but I think I might prefer to do this locally and not while on
an XC.

That's fine. Your safety pilot can play ATC and give you heading and
altitude changes.

[...]
If you are not comfortable talking to ATC, get as much ATC exposure as
you can. Plan all your trips to towered airports. Get flight
following. Talk to FSS to get weather updates and give them pireps.

Comfy with ATC and FSS. I fly out of a Class D near Boston - under part
of
the Boston Class B layer.

That's good. I know people trained in a similar situation under the Newark
class B that are not too comfortable with ATC.

- Andrew