[en] The high-energy above-threshold ionization of a model-H atom (with 1s state and the same binding energy as H atom) in a few-cycle laser pulse is investigated by using the improved strong-field approximation (ISFA), where the spherical shell potential is used as the rescattering potential. The results obtained from numerically solving time-dependent Schrödinger equation (TDSE) are regarded as the benchmark results. The results show that the energy distributions in high-energy region obtained from ISFA calculations using the spherical shell potential may either match or be better than those from ISFA using Yukawa potential and zero-range potential in the laser with wavelengths of 800 and 1200 nm. In addition, the influence of the rescattering potential on the density of probability at different ejection angles is also discussed in this paper