For a family gathering, marcos uses the recipe below to make a lemon-lime punch
1/4 gallon lime juice
2/3 gallon lemon juice
1 1/4 gallons carbonated water
how woul you decide the size of a container you need for one batch of the lemon-lime punch?

You can decide the size of the container by adding up the volume of all the ingredients and getting the appropriate size.

Common denominator = 12 

1/4 gallons = 3/12, 2/3 gallons = 8/12 gallons, 1 & 1/4 gallons = 15/12 gallons.

3/12 gallons + 8/12 gallons + 15/12 gallons =  26/12 gallons.

Therefore you need a container that can hold 3 gallons for the recipe.