You will see a list of files go by. Each has a U in front of it.
This "U" stands for "Update".
(Example from the CVS book)
Hale$ cvs checkout myproj
cvs checkout: Updating myproj
U myproj/README.txt
U myproj/hello.c
cvs checkout: Updating myproj/a-subdir
U myproj/a-subdir/whatever.c
cvs checkout: Updating myproj/a-subdir/subsubdir
U myproj/a-subdir/subsubdir/fish.c
cvs checkout: Updating myproj/b-subdir
U myproj/b-subdir/random.c
Hale$ ls
myproj/ was_myproj/
Hale$ cd myproj
Hale$ ls
CVS/ README.txt a-subdir/ b-subdir/ hello.c
Hale$
You will also see a CVS folder under every folder in your tree.
The top folder contains two files that tell CVS where the repository is located and what directory in the repository is being used.
The file ROOT contains something like :pserver:hale@192.168.1.72/usr/cvshome
The file REPOSITORY contains something like
javadeliver