Ex vs Ab

In the exercises a sentence read that “We seek advice from the leader” (paraphrased).
I wrote:

Consilium ex duce quaesimus.

The answer was:

Consilium ab duce quaesimus.

I understand ‘ab’ to mean ‘away from’, as moving away from.
Advice should come ‘out of’ the leader, ‘from within’. Right?

Thanks

PS Wheelock’s answer key should be revised.

ab can mean simply “from”, as can ex, but I am more inclined to relate ex with “out of”. ex is really a more violent concept, expressing that the motion begins within one thing and goes elsewhere. ab expresses motion originating from a source, in a more vague sense (could be within the source or from its periphery), and going elsewhere.

PS Wheelock’s answer key should be revised.

In what way? It was just updated last week.

Ex, although taking an ablative, always implies a physical motion out of something, that is ex urbe (urbi? damn those i-stems…no wait, urbe) but can on few occasions be figurative such as “out of this situation we learned” although personally I’d use ab there.

The more important point I meant to mention is that quaero can express the person from whom something is asked with either ab or ex, and even de. Also, I assume you mean quaerimus, not quaesimus. quaeso, -ere is actually the original form, hence the S in the perfect and supine stems, but this verb is defective.

Oops. Mea culpa. I meant “quaerimus”. As to answer key revisions I noticed in ch.26 a few things. I’ll get back to you. Thanks.