Surely quitter and partir can both mean to leave.

Question

In a recent C1 test I was asked to complete the sentence, " Après........, ils se sont perdus."
After leaving, they got lost. I wrote, " Après avoir quitté, ils se sont perdus". My answer was marked as incorrect. Why?

Accepted Answer

Bonjour Alan !
Actually, although partir and quitter can both mean "to leave", they are not really interchangeable, and are used in different contexts.
Have a look at our related lesson:https://french.kwiziq.com/revision/grammar/how-to-express-leaving-partir-vs-laisser-vs-quitter-vs-sortir
However, I agree that it would be less confusing to give the right verb to use with this question, and I've now added it as a hint, to remove any ambiguity :)
Thank you very much for getting in touch!
Bonne journée !