What is a Corrective & Preventive Action?
Corrective action realigns performance with the plan after a deviation has occurred; preventive action intervenes before an anticipated deviation happens; defect repair fixes a nonconforming deliverable. All three travel as change requests through change control.
The tense is the exam tell: already off track → corrective; trending toward trouble → preventive; the product itself is wrong → defect repair.
Worked example
Week 12 report: drywall is three days behind (corrective action — add a weekend crew); the same forecast shows the paint contractor's next job overlaps ours in May (preventive action — lock their dates now with a small deposit); and unit 4B's doors were hung swinging the wrong way (defect repair — rehang per drawings). Three findings, three different verbs, one change log.