Read this excerpt from a passage.
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.
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.
What was the cause of the author's irreversible hearing loss?
A. Repeated listening to loud music played very closely to her ears.
B. Going to all-ages shows at clubs was the main cause of her hearing loss.
C. The constant ringing in her ears caused damage to her hearing.
D. A genetic problem caused her to slowly lose her hearing over a long period of time.