diff --git a/jupyter_notebooks/createModel.ipynb b/jupyter_notebooks/createModel.ipynb
index 6ef050f7..a2ce9867 100644
--- a/jupyter_notebooks/createModel.ipynb
+++ b/jupyter_notebooks/createModel.ipynb
@@ -501,17 +501,21 @@
    "outputs": [],
    "source": [
     "# load model and convert to SBML\n",
-    "if loadFile(\"SPARCED.txt\") == 1:\n",
-    "    print(\"Success loading antimony file\")\n",
-    "else:\n",
+    "try:\n",
+    "    assert not loadFile(\"SPARCED.txt\") == -1\n",
+    "except:\n",
     "    print(\"Failed to load antimony file\")\n",
     "    exit(1)\n",
-    "\n",
-    "if writeSBMLFile(\"SPARCED.xml\",\"SPARCED\") == 1:\n",
-    "    print(\"Success converting antimony to SBML\")\n",
     "else:\n",
+    "    print(\"Success loading antimony file\")\n",
+    "\n",
+    "try:\n",
+    "    assert not writeSBMLFile(\"SPARCED.xml\",\"SPARCED\") == 0",
+    "except:\n",
     "    print(\"Failure converting antimony to SBML\")\n",
-    "    exit(1)"
+    "    exit(1)",
+    "else:\n",
+    "    print(\"Success converting antimony to SBML\")\n"
    ]
   },
   {