Yushan a frontrunner for natural wonders list

from Student Post

Yushan (Mt. Jade), a major natural landmark in Taiwan and the highest mountain in northeast Asia, presently ranks among the frontrunners to make a list of the world's seven natural wonders.
The Yushan National Park Administration nominated the mountain to represent Taiwan in a selection by people around the world via the Internet.

The worldwide polls are held by a foundation based in Switzerland to select seven world wonders in the categories of landscape, sea view, island, mountain, cave, forest, and lake on earth.

Yushan has defeated more than 1,000 nominated natural wonders to rank among the top 261 places on the overall list in the first round of voting.

A total of 77 natural wonders — 11 in each of the seven categories — will be picked out of the 261 places in the second round of balloting that will conclude on July 7.

The Web site for the worldwide voting is http://www.new7wonders.com/.

Officials at the Yushan National Park Administration said about 40,000 people scale Yushan every year and close to 20 percent or 8,000 mountain climbers are from abroad.

They said people should give their ballots to the more friendly and reachable mountains rather than the inaccessible ones, on which most people have no chance to set foot.


to rank (v.) 排名；名列
The movie ranked among the top ten for box office earnings that week.

to nominate (v.) 提名；推薦
The class nominated Violet to be the secretary of the student council.

poll (n.) 投票；民調
The bank sent out a poll in the mail asking how satisfied their customers were with online banking.

cave (n.) 山洞；洞穴
The campers went into a cave to take shelter from the storm, not knowing that a bear lived in it.

category (n.) 項目；類別
A biography and a fantasy novel should not be judged in the same category.

to scale (v.) 攀爬；攀登
A reward was offered to the first person who could scale the dangerous mountain.

inaccessible (adj.) 無法到達的；無法得到的
Because of the fallen rocks from the avalanche, the path had become inaccessible.

natural wonder 自然奇景
Mt. Everest is often considered a natural wonder of the world.

to give one's ballot to 投票給；票選
Tom decided to give his ballot to Obama.

to set foot 登上；站上
Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon.