Nah, curating just means upvoting.
You upvote, and it's slightly more likely to be seen, depending on the size of your upvote, which can then get it more upvotes, etc. Although, if you upvote and resteem, if it's good enough, that's liable to get it even more upvotes. You get rewarded with SP from the post if you upvote early and it's successful. It's relatively small when you have little SP, but it increases as you get more.