Available land space is decreasing day by day. Load per unit area coming from the superstructures has increased, demanding higher capacities from pile foundations. Pile load test being mandatory, most of the conventional load testing methods are becoming uneconomical, and risks associated have increased for testing such large capacity piles. So new techniques like bi-directional static load test (BDSLT) are being used more and more due to their capability of testing high-capacity piles and lower risk as compared to other conventional load testing methods. As load–displacement curves are obtained by placing hydraulic jacks within the piles, an equivalent top load (ETL) curve is to be obtained to know settlement response of pile when it would be loaded from top. Although several methods have evolved with time for estimating ETL curve, there are still a number of limitations of these methods. Response of sections of pile above and below hydraulic jacks are considered independent of direction of relative movement between soil and pile. For some methods even if strain gauge data are available, it has not been utilized to improve those methods. After a detailed study of these methods, various load test data have been analyzed and possible improvements have been proposed. In the case of modified method, if C1 and L1 parameters, which are used to estimate elastic compression of pile, are not determined accurately, it will result in unconservative ETL curve. In the case of load-transfer method, especially for sandy soil, t-z curve needs to be modified to develop ETL curve.