diff --git a/backends/arm/_passes/fold_qdq_with_annotated_qparams_pass.py b/backends/arm/_passes/fold_qdq_with_annotated_qparams_pass.py
index 963759bfa6d..4d265534f97 100644
--- a/backends/arm/_passes/fold_qdq_with_annotated_qparams_pass.py
+++ b/backends/arm/_passes/fold_qdq_with_annotated_qparams_pass.py
@@ -136,8 +136,14 @@ def call(self, graph_module: GraphModule) -> PassResult:
                 continue
 
             # Make sure we haven't already set qparams meta information on the node
-            assert "input_qparams" not in n.meta.keys()
-            assert "output_qparams" not in n.meta.keys()
+            assert "input_qparams" not in n.meta, (
+                f'Unexpected key "input_qparams" found in meta for node {n}. '
+                "input_qparams should not have been set at this point"
+            )
+            assert "output_qparams" not in n.meta, (
+                f'Unexpected key "output_qparams" found in meta for node {n}. '
+                "output_qparams should not have been set at this point"
+            )
 
             # for the inputs and outputs search the graph for quantization info and
             # store the information in a dict with order of the _tensor_ inputs as key,