Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow. It had happened when I was ten or eleven years old. I had decided to learn to swim. There was a pool at the YMCA in Yakima that offered exactly the opportunity. The Yakima River was treacherous. Mother continually warned against it. But the YMCA pool was safe — only two or three feet deep at the shallow end, gradually sloping to nine feet at the other. I went to the pool. I hated to walk naked into it and show my skinny legs, but I subdued my pride and did it. I had not been there long when in came a big bruiser of a boy, probably eighteen years old. He had thick hair on his chest and rippling muscles. He yelled, 'Hi, Skinny! How'd you like to be ducked?' With that he picked me up and tossed me into the deep end. I landed in a sitting position, swallowed water, and went at once to the bottom. I was frightened, but not yet frightened out of my wits. On the way down I planned: when my feet hit the bottom, I would make a big jump, come to the surface, lie flat on it, and paddle to the edge of the pool. Those nine feet were more like ninety. When my feet hit bottom I summoned all my strength and made what I thought was a great spring upwards. I imagined I would bob to the surface like a cork. Instead, I came up slowly. The water had a dirty yellow tinge. I grew panicky. I flailed at the surface, swallowed and choked. Then sheer, stark terror seized me — terror that knows no understanding, terror that knows no control. I had started on the long journey back to the bottom of the pool. Adapted from William O. Douglas, 'Of Men and Mountains'. Q1. Why did the author choose the YMCA pool rather than the Yakima River to learn to swim?