My humble 2016 JLPT N3 thread

I have over 10k words in Anki (can't say I *know* all of them), and I didn't have much less at the time of the N1 last December; I failed quite hard.
I had plenty of vocabulary for that test, but I didn't have adequate reading skills; my misses in the vocabulary section were mostly down to familiarity (I knew that I should have known them, but wasn't familiar enough to answer the question correctly; I did much worse than I had ever done on a practice test, so I figured I was just unlucky).
They have footnotes for several 'probably won't know' words for each piece in the reading portion (it actually throws me off, because I immediately look towards the footnotes, even if it's a word I know), though it's best if you know more of them, so you don't lose time.

The main hurdle with the reading section for N1 (and I presume N2; N3 and under seem to be less so, from the practice questions I've done for them) is reading and understanding quickly. It's not enough to read and understand, because you'll run out of time before you finish half of it.
I've finally started reading essays like I said I would, and I can tell that it's something that I'm lacking ability in.