What does the CAP theorem actually force you to choose, and when?

Answer

Only during a network partition: either refuse some requests to stay consistent (CP), or answer them with possibly stale data to stay available (AP). When the network is healthy, you can have both.

Why

PACELC adds the other half: even without a partition (Else), you trade Latency against Consistency, for example by waiting for replicas or not.

Review this in your daily deck → All cards in Consistency