Car burning oil, what can I do?

[Bobby Digital]

I drive a 99 Chevy Prizm with around 103,000 miles on it. Over the last 10,000 miles or so it has been burning oil at about a quart every 700-1,000 miles. If I can do something to fix this it would be great.

From the searching I've done on google it seems that it's normal for a high mileage car to burn some oil, but I think its burning too much. I notice quite a bit of white-grayish smoke coming out of the tailpipe, more than other cars.

From what I understand a mechanic can do a leak down test on the engine to check for problems. This can result in two major problems, valve guides or piston rings. The valve guides can be repaired for around 300 bucks and the piston rings would be much more expensive, and not worth it. Is this correct or am I not making any sense? Does this type of test sound like something I need done?