I've heard of schools founded by famous scholars to help prepare for the examination, but I imagine those were very limited and restricted geographically. Aside from hiring a wealthy tutor what would my options be? Even just owning all the required study materials must have been exceptionally expensive.
(I found [this prior answer] (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2d8g81/how_would_people_have_prepared_for_the_chinese/), but it focused on the content of the exam, not the process of preparing)
I cannot address every point related to exam preparation. However, I have done some research and classwork on book culture and publishing in China.
Self-studying for examinations was certainly possible, but as you pointed out, requiring study materials was certainly an issue. I am curious why you picked the time period of 1000 as this roughly coincides with the invention of moveable type print by 毕升 in the mid-11th century.
Regardless if we discuss pre- or post moveable type print, the question regarding study materials is not necessarily price but availability. Books were not cheap as transportation, storage, and print (either by hand or by press) were all forms of publishing cost. However, for an eager student, books could simply be borrowed from a local bibliophile.
Now we see two problems. First, you need to find a bibliophile. Secondly, agree on terms to borrow the book. The traditional Chinese economy is based on a trade system that is simultaneously regionalized and large scale throughout the country. Presses and copiers were often found in larger cities, and their output was moved to regional centers. At regional centers, however, mobile peddlers would generally only take everyday items from regional centers to rural areas. These items did not contain books. Any student would have to travel to an urban regional center and locate a bibliophile.
Bibliophiles only had access to the books that were brought to their urban center, or depending on interest and wealth, the individual would have to travel to a city with book production. Due to book limitability (from porters losing books or sections of books, fires, and poor storage methods), any eager student may not even find what he required for examination purposes. Did he have the opportunity and financial support to journey until the book was required? This type of time and money commitment is what made learning expensive, not necessarily the book itself.
If you were able to borrow a book that you desired, often times you had to exchange one of yours to the bibliophile. If that didn't work, you were often able to stay in his 'library' and copy the book by hand. Studying for an examination was more memorization than actual analysis, so the later method was reasonably convenient. Again, however, being able to leave home for the amount of time to journey and copy the book was the real cost.
If it's okay, I'd like to ask an add-on question: could anyone, theoretically, do the exam, or was it restricted to the middle classes? I mean, clearly a peasant would probably fail because of their poor education, but were they allowed to try?