<p>You are correct, it is two times across, not two lengths; and, one can use any stroke as long as one keeps moving, no time limit.</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure they implemented the swim test way back when to prepare students who were going off to war, and not as a means to combat obesity. --I might be confusing it with another school, though, so correct me if you've heard different.
I hate swimming but the running I can handle.</p>
<p>So the last time I was in a pool was in the middle school...
But I'm really skinny!
Swimming lessons?</p>
<p>Hmm, they say fat people float due to the lightness. I'm sure if you keep moving your feet and arms you'll be fine. Just don't go anywhere near Lake Michigan.</p>
<p>Interestingly enough, part of my summer course was to find E. Coli in Lake Michigan. And we did. It was quite disgusting.</p>
<p>On the swim test from Myth Information <a href="http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0408/features/index.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0408/features/index.shtml</a> (some great reading in this article).</p>
<p>"As for the swimming requirementCollege students must take both a general physical-education test and a swimming testdirector of physical education and athletics Tom Weingartner does not know when or why the University adopted the policy. The Urban Legends Reference Pages explain, Requiring graduates to pass a swim test seems to have originated about the time of World War I, as part of a Red Cross effort to teach swimming skills to all Americans. Though the Universitys first swimming pool was part of Ida Noyes Hall, required swimming courses did not appear in the undergraduate course catalog until 195455."</p>