Question

Use this dictionary entry to answer the question.
ir- (prefix): not [Latin]
What does the word irreversible mean in this sentence from paragraph 5 of the passage?
Her response—"The hearing loss is irreversible"—wasn't the answer I was expecting.

will never change

probably will change

could change a little

might change a lot
Reading Passage
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Once It's Gone, It's Gone
by Julia Casey
1 I'm a normal high school kid—that is, I like listening to music. Until about a year ago, I always liked listening to it loud. Loud enough that it filled up my head and pulsed through my body, so the boundary between me and the music disappeared. I've listened to countless hours of music—vibrant music pouring into my ears from headphones, washing over me from car speakers, or blasting at me from gigantic speakers at concerts.
2 But there's something about me that makes me not so normal. I have a hearing loss and a constant ringing in my ears that, unless some medical miracle happens, I'll suffer from these impairments forever. My ear problems are so severe that I feel I need to warn you: You have to protect your hearing as much as you can.
3 I'll tell you about my own experience, and I'll give you some scientific information.
4 I convinced my parents to get me a music device with headphones when I was eleven. When I was fifteen, I started going to concerts at indoor arenas and large amphitheaters. At the big concerts, you could always find me next to the speakers. A year later I was also going to all-ages shows at clubs—and you know where I'd park myself. After a concert or a club gig, I'd occasionally notice ringing in my ears afterward. But by the next day it would be gone. Yet that post-event ringing gradually got louder and louder, and it took longer and longer to disappear. Then one day last year I realized that the ringing was 24/7, except when I was asleep. I also had to face the fact that, more and more often, I was asking, “What did you say?” in conversations.
5 My parents took me to a hearing specialist. The diagnosis was pretty straightforward: In both ears, I'd lost some hearing at one range and a lot of hearing at another. The constant ringing was connected to the hearing loss. Of course I asked the doctor, “So what can you do about it?” Her response—“The hearing loss is irreversible”—wasn't the answer I was expecting.
6 How had something as innocent as music done so much damage? Here's a brief explanation.
7 There are hair cells in the inner ear that are involved in your ability to hear. Excessively loud noise can kill these cells, and the longer you're exposed to the loud noise, the greater the number of cells that are destroyed. The greater the number of cells that are destroyed, the worse your hearing gets. Once those hair cells have died, they stay dead; so your hearing isn't likely to get better in the future.
8 Genetics—that is, the genes you've inherited—may play a role in how your ears react to loud sounds. But whether or not you're at risk of damaging your hearing depends mainly on two things: how loud the music or other noise is and how long you're exposed to it. The unit used to measure sound level is called a decibel. Experts say that noise-induced hearing loss can happen from hearing a very loud sound (120 decibels or higher) once, or from hearing a sound at 85 decibels or higher for an extended period of time. To put this in perspective, look at the decibel levels of a few different situations.

Answer 1

"Will never change."

Explanation: The prefix ir- means "not," so "irreversible" means "not reversible" — it cannot be changed or undone.