The focused ultrasound plays a role in localization and modulating the scattering light in ultrasound-modulated optical tomography (UOT). Both the modulation efficiency of the scattering light and the spatial resolution of UOT are determined by ultrasound. The effects of repetition frequency and pulse energy of impulse ultrasound on the modulated scattering light are derived through experiment in this letter. Furthermore, we compare the imaging sensitivity with 1, 2.25, 5, and 10 MHz center frequencies of impulse ultrasound. Experimental results demonstrate that better signal-to-noise ratios and higher sensitivities can be gained by use of more intense ultrasound and lower ultrasound frequencies.