Are the instructions correct?

The second option is correct. Your alternative is not.

Can you elaborate the answer and explain why? I’m confused why each option executes a different PHP script. I wouuld like to understand it.

The short answer is that these are just different entry points to the same script.

The first option – running a script using php-cli, this is the faster method – is not always available depending on the server setup.

The second option is basically a work-around – using a web-client to load WP and do cron.

Sorry, I’m still confused.

One option use php-cli and the other a web-get command, I knew taht. But they don’t execute the same sript. One execute the script wp-cron.php from the core of WordPress, the other executes the wp-cron-control.php script packaged with the plugin.

Most PHP scripts are not coded to be executed via php-cli.
wp-cron.php is one of those – not suitable for execution from php-cli.

So the wp-cron-control.php script effectively works as a wrapper to get the command line parameters and pass them to wp-cron.php.

Aha!!! That’s why I had so much troubles trying to run wp-cron.php through php-cli (and the reason I found wp-cron control trying to find a solution).

Thank you very much.

You may want to read up on the difference: https://php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.php

Some of the most notable differences:
* no access to query vars, $_GET or $_POST, but access to command line parameters instead via $argc and $argv
* no max execution time
* current directory does not change