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The Gettysburg Address runs about two minutes — roughly the same length as your Level 1 gate speech — and it has exactly one idea. Most failing Level 1 manuscripts we score don't fail from lack of content. They fail because they're trying to say four things in the space built for one.
Suggested pace: about a week. This lesson works best across a few short sessions, not one sitting — write today, come back and revise in a day or two, then rehearse once more before you submit. Real progress comes from returning to the same skill more than once, rested, not from cramming it all in at once.
Before you touch your draft, ask yourself honestly: if someone could only remember one sentence from your speech tomorrow, what would you want it to be? Sit with that question before you try to write the answer.
Go paragraph by paragraph and score each one, 1 to 5, on how directly it serves your one-sentence message. Anything scoring below a 3 is a real candidate to cut, even if you like the writing — liking a sentence and it earning its place are two different things.