Do you know what you’d like to be when you grow up? It takes most people many years to find the answer.

For Alexandra Nechita, it never really seemed to be a ______. From the day she began ______ at the age of two, she was an artist.

Born in Romania in 1985, Alexandra moved to California when she was a baby. She loved painting so much. Her parents hoped that she could spend more time being ______ and playing with other children. So when her parents ______ away her coloring books, Alexandra began drawing her own pictures and coloring them in.

By the time Alexandra was seven years old, she had begun painting with oil paints. When she took a local art class, her teacher was amazed at the young artist’s unusual ______ of painting. Alexandra’s work was ______ in some ways to cubist (立体派) paintings by artists like Picasso. These artists did not paint in a realistic way. They ______ their imaginations to play an important part in their work. The interesting thing was that little Alexandra had ______ seen the works of these artists. People called her “Little Picasso”. This was a great honor, but Alexandra’s style of painting was all her own.

Alexandra soon became famous. ______ she is still a teen, her career (事业) has continued to progress at an amazing pace (一步). The sale of a single piece can bring ______ more than $100,000. But this is not why Alexandra paints. She gives away lots of money to the society.